


Embers

by 1nkblots



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Dissociation, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, No Romance, Sensory Overload, deaf Matt, not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 10:58:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 29,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4476797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1nkblots/pseuds/1nkblots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He had often longed for silence.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>But its sudden absence after decades of noise was far worse than those fleeting moments when he had wished for peace and quiet. Now the world around him was nothing. No shifting images in his head, no world on fire, just endless black.</i></p><p>The world is silent, Foggy and Karen don't know how to help, and for the second time in his life, Matt has to re-learn how to function with senses on overdrive, all the while praying that it won't be permanent this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first post on ao3, and the first fanfic I've written in years, so please forgive me while I try to figure out what the hell I'm doing.
> 
> This takes place sometime between Matt meeting Claire, and Stick showing up. MCU canon is followed as closely as possible, gaps are filled in by the comics when it's convenient, and by my imagination when it isn't. Medical knowledge is based mostly on Hollywood logic and what little I can remember from my university psychology/neuroscience courses.
> 
> Requests and "what if?"s are welcome, and feel free to build off or re-mix to your heart's desire.

He woke to silence.

He wasn’t even sure he was awake, at first. He had never heard silence, not since he could remember anyway. Every moment since the accident had been filled with sound, even if it was only the sound of his own heart and lungs.

He had often longed for silence.

But its sudden absence after decades of noise was far worse than those fleeting moments when he had wished for peace and quiet. Now the world around him was nothing. No shifting images in his head, no world on fire, just endless black.

He gritted his teeth, chest tightening, fingers clenching around nothing. This was not happening. This was not happening. It was some nightmare, praying on his worst fear - that something else would be taken from him, and he would be left truly helpless.

His cheek, below the mask, was pressed against asphalt. 

This was not a dream. 

Slowly, he pulled his hands underneath him, and pushed himself up. Pain shot through his leg and side. He was sure he made a noise, but could only feel the vibration of it in his throat and chest.

He reached out beside him and found a wall. Brick. He leaned against it for a moment, the sharp ridges poking uncomfortably into his back. Everything hurt.

He tried to slow his panicked breathing, concentrate. He could still smell, he could still feel vibrations. He could still tell _something_ about the world around him, he just had to calm down and concentrate. 

Vibrations through the ground, stronger on the right, irregular. Vehicles driving down a busy street. 

The - frankly disgusting - scent of the alley had not changed, aside from the addition of what might have been smoke, nearly dissipated. He was still where he had been before… before… whatever had happened. It was fuzzy. A flash of crackling heat and pain, a bang like thunder, and then nothing.

But he knew where he was. Whoever had attacked him - or had he attacked them? - Had simply left him alone. That was something.

He reached for the phone in his pocket. He’d get a lecture, again, but Claire was his best chance. 

The movement sent fire through him, muscles spasming as he tried to get it under control. He clenched his teeth and tried not to make a sound, though he wasn’t sure whether he was successful. 

He finally got the phone out, shaking. 

And it fell apart in his hands. 

He leaned his head back against the brick, breathing deeply, taking stock. A wound in his right thigh, deep. Right shoulder nearly out of it’s socket, ribs aching, scrapes on his cheek and arms, all on the right side. He must have been thrown against the brick, hard.

He stood slowly, leaning heavily against the wall. 

Stop. Concentrate.

The air was still cool and damp - still night. Hopefully not too many people around. Hopefully those that were would take no notice, just assume he was a drunk stumbling home for the night. He rolled up his sleeves and pulled off the soft gloves - as painful as it might be to feel his way along a brick wall with nothing to protect his hands, he had to be able to tell as much about his environment as possible, pick up on every vibration and change in the air.

He pulled off the mask, fumbled with the knot, and let it fall. Just a piece of fabric now, nobody need know the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen had been there.

He limped forward, stopped. He raised a hand to his face. No good wandering around looking like he’d just been beat to crap if he didn’t want to draw attention. He wiped away as much blood as he could on a sleeve and hope he didn’t just leave a smear.  

Leg next. A lot of blood. Nothing he could do about it but hope the black clothing and the darkness would hide it.

Now pick a direction. If he was correct, then three blocks to his right was the office. With a phone. He could call Clair. No way of knowing if she had actually answered, but it was something. 

But, shit, what if Foggy and Karen were working late? Foggy, as a general rule, didn’t work a moment longer than he had to. But if Karen decided to stay, which she often did, he would’ve too, pretending to do work so he’d have an excuse to make sure she got home safe. He didn’t want them involved. Not that this was something he’d be able to hide from them for long, but still, he didn’t want them to see… this.

To the left was his apartment, but that was farther away. A lot farther away. And across a busy intersection. 

He wasn’t even sure he’d make it to the office. He definitely wouldn’t make it to his apartment.

He’d have to risk it. 

He crawled along slowly, waited at the first street for the vibrations of a car to die away, unsteadily crossed with nothing for support, not even sure he was walking straight. Tripped over the curb - he’d veered way off course - and barely managed to stumble forward enough to catch himself against a wall.

Two more blocks to go.

 


	2. Chapter 2

He dragged himself down the hallway. 

He was breathing too fast, heart beating painfully. He’d lost what little control he had sometime after the second road crossing.

Almost there.

_This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening._

Almost there.

His leg was starting to buckle underneath him. It didn’t hurt anymore, it just wouldn’t hold his weight. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that was bad, but he didn’t care. He could barely feel the wall under his left hand. He kept forgetting what he was doing, just knew that he had to keep going. With every step he felt like he was drifting farther away from reality, floating through nothing, not entirely sure any of this existed, not entirely convinced he wasn’t still in that alley, bleeding to death. Wasn't entirely sure he cared if he was, except he couldn't do that to… couldn't let them find out that way...

His heart stopped for a moment when he finally reached the door an eternity later and he remembered what the door meant, what he was trying to do. 

If it was locked…

But it wasn’t. 

And that could only mean that Karen and Foggy were still there.

He hesitated. He couldn’t drag them into this. He couldn’t-

The choice was taken away when the door knob flew out of his hand. He would have fallen on his face if a pair of hands hadn’t caught his arm.

Foggy. As much as he didn’t want to get him involved… god, he hadn’t even realized how much of a relief it would be to have Foggy there, solid, and real.

Another pair of hands grabbed his other arm. Karen. He wanted to reach out, touch their faces, just to reassure himself, it was them, he wasn’t hallucinating. But he was afraid that if he let go of of their arms, either his shaking leg would give, and he’d take them both down with him, or he’d drift into that nothingness and never come back.

He felt the air move against his cheek. Karen was talking, pushing the hair out of his face.

And it all came crashing down. 

If it had been Claire, if it had been anyone else, he might’ve been able to hold it together. 

But his friends - his _family_ \- were talking, and he didn’t know what they were saying, or how to explain.

_I can’t hear_.

He yelled it, screamed it, tears streaming down his face, a child again screaming in the street, reaching for the sky as it faded to black. Except this time he hadn’t had a chance to reach, to take one last look. The world was just gone.

He couldn’t even hear his own voice. The voice that he had so often hated for hurting his ears and drowning out his surroundings if he spoke too loudly. He couldn’t hear it, and no amount of screaming into the darkness was going to change that. 

His leg finally gave, and the void swallowed him whole.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Foggy, is that… is that Matt?”

The figure at the door had turned the knob, then just stood there. 

“I think so.” Foggy looked at her and slowly rose from the chair he’d pulled over to her desk. “Matt, buddy? Is that you?”

He walked over to the door.

“What’re you doing?”

He opened the door, and barely managed to catch Matt’s arm as he stumbled inside.

“Shit, Karen!”

He heard her heels clicking frantically as she ran over to help.

Matt’s chest was heaving, eyes blinking rapidly, teeth clenched, drenched in sweat. He’d never seen Matt look so terrified. Hell, he didn’t think he’d ever even seen Matt look mildly startled. 

“Oh my god, his leg Foggy.”

Foggy looked down at the wound across Matt’s thigh.

“That- that’s a lot of blood…”

“Jesus Matt, what the hell happened?”

Karen had taken his other arm, and he held on so tightly she was sure he would leave a bruise.

“Matt, say something!”

He opened his mouth, but nothing intelligible came out, just a whimper.

Foggy fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his phone.

“It’s okay buddy, I’m getting help. Just hold on.”

Karen reached out and pushed back the hair that had become plastered to his face.

“Matt, what happened, come on.”

The words finally came out as a strangled whisper, slowly getting louder and louder, and Karen and Foggy could do nothing more than just look at each other.

And suddenly the words stopped, and they were struggling under the dead weight, lowering him slowly to the floor. 

“Give me your tie Foggy.”

“What?”

“Give me your tie or he’s gonna bleed out before the ambulance even gets here.”

“Right, yeah.” He pulled it off as quickly as his shaking hands could manage and passed it to Karen. 

She tied it around Matt’s leg and pulled it as tightly as she could. She didn’t really know what she was doing, didn’t know if it would help, but she had to do something.

“I need a… a stick or something.”

Foggy was just staring at the wound.

“Foggy go!” 

“Yeah, um, stick. Wh-where?”

“I don’t know, a ruler, a curtain rod, pull apart a chair, something!”

He jumped up and ran over to her desk.

“And the first aid kit!”

He ran back with a wooden ruler, then sprinted to the bathroom.

She shoved the ruler under the tie, and twisted until she thought it would break. God, she hoped to hell she was doing this right.

Foggy dropped down beside her, panting, and opened the kit.

“What do you need?”

“Alcohol, we need to clean it.”

He grabbed the bottle and started digging around, pulling out cotton balls.

“Forget the cotton, just pour it on.”

“But–”

“They’re not gonna do any good on something this size, just pour it on!”

“How much?”

“I don’t know, all of it!”

The ruler was biting into her hands, but she didn’t dare let go. Foggy clumsily splashed the contents of the bottle into the wound. She hoped they weren’t just making things worse.

“Now what?” Foggy’s face was white. He was still holding the empty bottle, hand shaking.

“Now we pray the ambulance gets here in time.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

The air smelled sharply of disinfectant. He didn’t need more than that to know he was in a hospital.

He could just make out Foggy’s cologne, only because he always wore too much. The smells of the hospital were too strong. He tried to sift through them, but they burned his nose. His head was too cloudy anyway, he didn’t think he could concentrate enough to pick out anything useful.

He kept his eyes closed. It didn’t make any difference, not really, but as long as he kept them closed, he could pretend he was still asleep, he could avoid facing reality. Was he even awake? Everything felt so muted and distant, maybe he wasn’t.

His leg throbbed. The sheets were synthetic, he could feel them scratching against his bare feet and arms like brambles as they shifted with his breathing. He was awake.

And already he had to get out of there.

He opened his eyes. He couldn’t leave if he was pretending to be unconscious.

It was strange, he usually had such a clear picture of his surroundings in his head, he still expected to _see_ something when he opened his eyes. It had never really bothered him before, but that picture was gone and… well, perhaps it was just that the disappointment was even greater than usual. Like he expected to get one sense back in return for losing another. 

A hand suddenly materialized on his arm, and he tried to sit up reflexively, startled.

Karen. It was just Karen. He hadn’t even realized she was there.

Either he’d lost a lot of blood, or they’d given him a lot of drugs - or both - because it seemed to take hardly anything for Karen to push him back down, and just that small start left him out of breath, heart beating through his chest.

The bed shifted and it felt like everything had dropped out of him and he was floating three feet above his body, not even in the world anymore.  He grabbed at Karen’s arm to keep him there, and he felt the air move above him, and then the bed stopped. The back had been raised so he was sitting.

His head was spinning. God what had they given him?

He didn’t even realize he’d reached out with his other hand as well, and Foggy had grabbed it. 

They stayed like that for a few minutes, Matt concentrating on calming his breathing, his heart beat, on just feeling Foggy and Karen there, tethering him to the world. It’s going to be okay. Just keep telling yourself.

It’s going to be okay.

He took a deep breath, prepared himself for the worst. He had adapted to blindness, he would adapt to deafness as well, if he had to. But he had to know.

He tried to speak, but his throat burned, and he wasn’t even sure he was making noise, or forming proper words.

He gestured with his hand, and Karen pulled away. 

She wrapped his fingers around a pen, and put something on his lap. He let go of Foggy to feel it - a notebook.

He ran his fingers over the page, checking the size.

It had been so long since he’d actually _written_ something, by hand. And his head was so fuzzy and slow, hard to keep hold of one thought for very long. He started writing, forming the letters slowly.

_Permanent?_

Nothing. Of course nothing, they probably had no idea how to tell him the answer. They didn’t know he could read the impressions from the pen on the paper if they wrote it down, and if he told them… that was just going to raise too many questions.

He tilted his head back against the pillow and closed his eyes. No difference. God sometimes he just wished it would make a _difference_ when he closed his eyes.

Karen grabbed his hand, and traced something onto his palm. 

It was so simple, but his brain still felt sluggish, and she had to repeat it a few times before he could figure it out.

…O… N… O…

He tried to hold back tears of relief. He reached out for both of them again.

He just had to hold on, and fight through.

It would not be forever.

 


	5. Chapter 5

“He’s awake.”

There was no fluttering of eyelids, no slow opening and grimace against the light. One moment his eyes were closed, the next they were open.

Karen put her hand on his arm, wanting to make sure he knew he wasn’t alone.

He nearly jumped out of his skin, bolting upright as though she’d jolted him with a cattle prod, startling both of them in the process.

“Jesus Matt, you’re going to rip out your stitches.” 

He put up no resistance when she pushed him back down, gasping like he’d just run a marathon.

She glanced up at Foggy. Obviously Matt was not in good shape, but Foggy had known him longer, would pick up on things that she couldn’t. He’d know how bad things really were.

His eyebrows were furrowed, jaw clenched, just staring at the spot under the sheets where they had sown up Matt’s leg. His hands gripped the rail of the bed, knuckles white. Things were bad.

He had been trying almost since they’d first met to sneak up on Matt, scare him. He couldn’t even count the number of times and ways he’d tried. And Matt had never so much as batted an eye.

But he was still trying to catch his breath because Karen had touched his arm.

And that worried him more than anything. Matt didn’t _get_ startled. He didn’t _get_ scared. 

He glanced up to see Karen looking at him intently, and he started pressing buttons on the side of the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“The man wants to sit up, he should sit up.” He forced a grin, trying to make light of what had just happened.

“No, Foggy! Put it back down, the doctor said-“

“I know what the doctor said, it’ll just be for a few minutes.”

Karen felt fingernails digging into her skin, and she waved her other arm at him.

“Foggy! Foggy stop, look at him!”

“Oh shit, I’m sorry buddy. I’m sorry. _Shit_!”

Matt had flung his arm out like he was trying to catch his balance, and Foggy grabbed his hand.

They stood in silence, not sure what else to do.

Matt finally seemed to get his breathing under control, and opened his mouth to speak. 

“Is it…” his voice was hoarse. He stopped and swallowed painfully, shaking his head slightly.

He made a writing motion with his hand.

Karen looked at Foggy, then started digging through her purse.

“I, uh… yeah, pen and paper.”

She held a tiny notebook, barely bigger than her hand.

“Is that- can he write on that? It’s so small…”

“He’ll be fine.”

She wrapped Matt’s fingers around the pen. He took the notebook and after a moment, started writing, painfully slow and careful.

_Permanent?_

Karen looked at Foggy.

“What do we tell him?”

“I… I don’t know, I mean, we don’t really know, they didn’t find anything wrong…”

“They think it’s going to come back though.”

“They _think_ , but they don’t _know_. They don’t even know why he… why he can’t hear anything. How would they know if it’ll come back?”

“We can’t tell him that.”

“He’d want to know the truth no matter what. We can’t really tell him anything right now anyway, unless you’ve got a braille printer stashed in your purse too.”

She looked down. Matt seemed to have realized it as well. He’d leaned back into the pillows, eyes closed, hands in his lap, one of them picking absently at the sheet. She couldn’t just leave him with _nothing_.

She grabbed his hand, and started tracing letters onto his palm. It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was as close as she could get.

“What are you doing?”

“Telling him no, it’s not permanent.”

“But we don’t know-“

“And he doesn’t need to know that, not right now. Right now he needs hope.”

It took a few repetitions, but finally Matt seemed to catch on. The briefest smile flashed across his face, and he took their hands again. Softer this time, no longer hanging on for dear life. 

He would be fine, she told herself.

It was all going to be fine.

 


	6. Chapter 6

He was going crazy, he had to get out. He had to go home.

His remaining senses were trying to make up for his loss of hearing, but it was hurting more than helping. It was all he could do to keep still, to keep calm, so he wouldn’t draw the attention of the nurses and doctors. No matter how much it hurt, he didn’t want them to push any more drugs - it was hard enough without them to keep from feeling like he was drifting away.

He could feel the vibrations of people walking now, pick out the footsteps of the people who walked by most often, and he tried as much as he could to concentrate on those, to start rebuilding his mental picture of the world, coax some embers back to life. But those embers were difficult to grab hold of, and they burned him when he tried.

He could feel each stitch in his leg, feel the shoulder joint that had nearly been dislocated, every scrape and bruise, old broken bones from months or years ago. 

The sheets felt like steel wool, the food tasted like preservatives and latex gloves. He’d tried to catch some trace of Claire - he was hoping he’d ended up in her hospital - but the smell of the chemicals nearly caused him to pass out, and he hadn’t tried that again.

But when he let go of those embers, that was so much worse. Even when he was holding on, he could feel that void somewhere over his head, tugging. And the moment he let go - and eventually, he had to let go - he was lost in it. There was no in-between, no tolerable middle ground.

He needed something to _do_ , something to focus on that didn’t require amplified senses. It’s what he had always done, when the world got to be too much, focus on one thing that didn’t hurt - on his cane, on Foggy, on studying - and just allow everything else to fade into the background. He didn’t know if it would work. It felt like someone had hit the reset button, undone everything he had worked at since he was a kid. But it couldn’t make things worse.

There was a new set of footsteps. He thought he recognized them, but not from the hospital. He tried to imagine what they would sound like.

Karen.

He had to suppress a grin - she was in the hallway still - until she took his hand, and this time he didn’t jump. 

She pressed something into his hands - a book. He could have kissed her. It didn’t even matter which book it was - it could have been the phone book for all he cared, at least it was something to focus on. She guided his hand to the bedside table. Four more books were stacked there, and he knew he was grinning like an idiot. 

He felt her arms wrap around him, and just for a moment, her familiar smell blocked out that of the hospital, and he felt like he could breathe again. He held on tightly, not caring how much it hurt. For the first time since he’d woken up in that alley, he didn’t feel like he was about to drift away into nothingness. He tried to say “Thank you” but wasn’t sure if he’d managed it, so he just squeezed harder.

All too soon, she was gone, and he was alone again.

But he smiled as he opened the book to the first page.


	7. Chapter 7

He woke up to Claire’s hands checking his stitches. 

This was good, this was very good. She would understand, help him get home. 

He reached for her hand, and she pushed him away. The air vibrated angrily around him. He tried not to smile - he could take a guess at the kind of lecture she was trying to give.

He passed her the notebook, and she took it hesitantly, then returned it. He ran his fingers over the page.

_You can read this?_

He nodded.

The air swirled. She walked away, returned. Snatched the notebook from him.

_What the hell happened?_

_Don’t know. Home?_

Claire didn’t pass the notebook back.

Please, he said out loud.

Claire lowered the rail on the side of the bed, and handed the notebook back.

 _If you can stand_ _I’ll try_

He sat up slowly, gently swinging his legs over the side, the sheets feeling like they were scraping his skin off.

He reached for the floor with his uninjured leg. He’d been lying down too long, he was spinning in the void again. Claire took his arm. He put his other foot down, transferring the weight as slowly as he could. It hurt like hell, but the pain brought him back. He could manage it. He tried to take a step, and found himself on the floor. 

He wasn’t sure whether his leg gave, or his balance was shot. Didn’t matter, ending up on the floor after less than ten seconds was not exactly going to work in his favour.

Claire was struggling to get him up, he could feel her panicked heartbeat through her hands. He clamped his mouth shut, trying not to make any noise. He could not let her get in trouble because of him. Even with Claire taking most of his weight, it took everything he had to stand and stumble back into the bed, trembling.

Claire was checking the stitches again, her heart pounding. He fumbled for her shoulder.

Fine, he said. 

She passed him the notebook.

_You are not going home._

She’d underlined it so many times he couldn’t actually tell how many lines there were.

And she left.

 


	8. Chapter 8

She didn’t think the goddamned idiot would _actually_ try to _stand up_.

Well what the hell was she expecting then?

_Shit shit shit!_

He was _heavy_ , and him scrabbling around like a jackrabbit trying to get his good leg back under him was not helping.

She raised her eyes to the ceiling.

_God why have you done this to me?_

He stopped moving. He was on his knees, breathing hard. One hand on her shoulder, the other behind her neck.

“Are you done now?” She wasn’t sure why she was trying so hard to disguise the panic in her voice when he couldn’t actually hear her. And it wouldn’t have worked anyway if he could.

She moved both of his arms behind her shoulders, put her own arms under his, and heaved him off the floor. She could feel his heart pounding against her chest for a moment before depositing him gracelessly into the bed and scrambling to get him pushed all the way on before he could fall off.

She muttered a string of curses as she checked his stitches. _Stupid stupid stupid!_ She wasn’t sure if she was referring to herself or to Matt. 

He reached for her shoulder. His hand was shaking.

“Fine.” His voice sounded strange.

_No you’re not you’re a goddamned idiot._

But the stitches were still in place, and there were no monitors screaming at her, and there were no doctors running down the hall, and how they’d managed to avoid all that she’d never know but she was getting out of there as fast as she could just in case.

She snatched up the notebook and wrote, pressing hard so there was no possible way he could miss her words. It was all she could do not to throw it at his stupid face.

But her heart nearly broke at the look on that stupid face when he had run his fingers over her message.

She turned away quickly and hurried down the hallway. She would not be sucked into those sad, unfocused puppy-dog eyes (how could someone who regularly beat the shit out of people _look like that?_ ). He lived alone, she couldn’t let him go home. She hadn’t been working when they brought him in, she didn’t know _who_ had brought him in, or if he had friends or family or _anybody_ who could look after him.

He really did look like shit though, more than he should’ve.

And it shouldn’t have been a surprise. He could smell cologne three floors down, taste blood in the air… this place was probably hell for him. 

She groaned, looking up at the ceiling again.

_Why me?_

She would run interference, try to keep the harshest cleaning chemicals away from him, should probably try to minimize the drugs they gave him as well because who the hell knew what they would do to him - he’d never even let her give him a tylenol. She’d make sure the other nurses and the doctors didn’t get too involved or ask too many questions. And, she supposed, she’d have to find some way to get him home, because he was clearly never going to get better here. And then, of course, she’d have to check up on him on her way home every day, maybe on her way out as well, and on her days off, make sure the moron hadn’t launched himself head-first into a wall trying to do a backflip or something.

As if her job wasn’t hard enough.

She hoped he realized how lucky he was. This could’ve gone a lot worse, if he’d ended up anywhere else.

Why had she ever pulled him out of that dumpster?

_Goddamned stupid idiot._

She still wasn’t sure if she was referring to herself or to Matt.

Probably both.


	9. Chapter 9

It was Foggy’s turn to visit. 

Unlike Karen, he didn’t try to communicate much. He brought a couple of books, a printed braille page to tell Matt what was going on in the outside world, and what the doctors were saying (they still hadn’t found anything), and then he just sat, arm on the bed, and Matt took his wrist. Not exactly taking the initiative to reach out - and he wished he would, because he felt like he was imposing, like Foggy didn’t really want to be there, didn’t want to make contact, and Matt hated himself for _needing_ it so badly. But at least Foggy _was_ there, and wasn’t pulling away. It was more than he would have asked, more than that voice in the back of his head told him he should expect or receive. He could usually push it away, but with no one else to listen to, it was getting loud, and he was starting to believe it.

He understood. He’d probably traumatized him, falling into the office like that, blood everywhere, and he hadn’t offered up an explanation yet. He couldn’t. What words would make what had happened okay? He shouldn’t have gone to the office. He should’ve risked it and gone home, had Claire send a text saying he’d be home sick for a few days while he figured something out. He shouldn’t have done this to them, he shouldn’t have. 

And now Foggy was here out of some sense of obligation, because that’s what Foggy did. He _needed_ to help people, needed to know that the people around him were safe and looked after - even if they were strangers, even if he didn’t want to. He’d talked big about becoming a lawyer for the money, but that’s not why he did it, it never was. He’d done it to help people, even people who maybe didn’t deserve it.

Matt had been trying to meditate, so he could figure out what had happened, so he could help whatever damage had been done to heal faster. But it was getting more and more difficult to block everything out. And when he did manage it, that feeling of floating untethered, of maybe never making it back, overwhelmed him and he panicked.

But Foggy was there, and Matt could wrap his hand around his wrist, and feel the heartbeat there. It gave him something outside of himself to concentrate on, something that didn’t hurt, and would bring him back to reality when he needed it to. He told himself that was why he needed the contact - it was practical, not emotional. If he was honest with himself (which he wasn’t), he was afraid to be without it. The last time, Foggy had simply left, and Matt had plunged into the void. He held on more tightly this time. When Foggy started to move, he had to notice, so he could pull himself back.

The voice in his head was telling him he shouldn’t need a safety net. He should be stronger than that. He struggled to get it to stop.

He was missing something, but he thought he had most of it pieced together. There had been someone in the alley. Young, small. Probably a child, maybe a teenager, though he couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. 

But he knew they were scared. Scared of _him_. Of who the media said he was.

And there was a flash of heat and a bang, followed by another and another, and a searing pain as some piece of debris was sent flying towards him, unable to hear it over the ringing in his ears.

A thunderstorm, a thunderstorm in an alley.

At college once, he’d participated in an experiment where they used a tiny electric pulse on his head to make his fingers jump. He’d done it out of curiosity, mostly. He had wanted to see if they would find anything, well… weird. They hadn’t found anything. He hadn’t really expected them to, it wasn’t like it was a full brain scan, which definitely did not seem like a good idea. But they had gone on to explain that, applied to other areas, the pulse could turn things off as well - the ability to process speech, language, images, sound, even pain and emotion. It was supposed to be temporary, only lasting for a moment.

But then, when you were dealing with people with powers, you had to throw out the laws of physics, biology, and science in general, and start over again.

He thought that, maybe, this child’s powers were the cause. A bolt had hit him, thrown him against the wall, must have knocked out his hearing. And since the doctors could find no damage, it had to be temporary. 

It had to be. The pathways were just disrupted, and they’d figure themselves out eventually.

Either that, or it was what the doctors were now suggesting - mental trauma, not physical. Conversion disorder. Deafness as a defensive reaction to extreme stress. He dismissed the idea, not for the first time. He had faced far worse threats than a frightened child who simply couldn’t control their powers. For Matt Murdock, blind and defenceless and mugged in an alley, the diagnosis might make sense, but not for the Man in the Mask. It didn’t… it didn’t make sense.

Matt was surprised when Foggy pried his hand open, and started tracing letters on his palm. He hadn’t done that before.

OK

He wasn’t sure if Foggy was telling him that he’d be okay, or asking him if he was okay, or something else entirely.

Yes, Matt said out loud. He was okay. Or he would be. Or he would, at the very least, pretend to be.

He was even more surprised when Foggy placed a hand on his head, hesitantly, like he thought Matt might break.

And then he was gone.


	10. Chapter 10

Foggy hesitated for a moment. There was a nurse doing something with the monitors at Matt’s bed. There hadn’t been any hospital staff there when he’d visited before. He wasn’t sure if he should interrupt. She seemed kind of angry.

She glanced at him briefly, flashing a tight smile - the kind of smile you got from over-worked fast food employees who were only smiling because they had to and secretly wanted to bash you over the head with the cash register.

Screw it. He passed the other patients and stopped at Matt’s bed.

“Am I… should I come back later?”

She looked surprised.

“You’re here to see _him_?

“Yeah.”

“And you would be?”

“We work together.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“We’re lawyers, we work at the same firm. I mean, well, it’s just kind of the three of us…”

The eyebrow went back down, but she crossed her arms, and _what was going on_ he felt like he was being interrogated and _she wasn’t even talking._

“We’ve been best friends since college, and we kind of always talked about working together…” She was still glaring. “And then we were at this big firm, but Matt didn’t think we could help as many people that way, so we just went off on our own and…”

_God, shut up, why are you vomiting your life story all over her, she doesn’t care!_

But she almost seemed… relieved?

“Sorry it’s… it’s been a long day. Go ahead, I’m finished.”

Foggy waited for her to leave. 

Weird.

He went around to Matt’s left, the side that didn’t look like it had lost a fight with a meat grinder, and touched the back of Matt’s hand as gently as possible. Heflinched, _dammit!_ Flinched and then smiled.

Foggy didn’t think anyone else had noticed. _He_ had barely noticed. But it was there. When someone touched him, or when he moved around, or even for no apparent reason at all. A little puff of air out through the nose, a blink that was just a moment too long, lips pursed for a fraction of a second, sometimes a small noise in his throat, barely audible.

He wasn’t sure if it was pain or fear, but it was _something_ , and it was clearly not good. So Foggy didn’t touch him. He wasn’t going to be responsible for causing more pain. He wished he could figure out what it was, and why, and just _make it stop_ because it was killing him. But if he asked, Matt would just say he was fine, and try to hide it even more than he already was. So Foggy didn’t ask. 

Matt pointed out which books he’d finished with, and Foggy replaced them with new ones. He handed Matt a page printed in braille - the doctors still hadn’t found anything ( _now they think it’s all in your head, but what do they know?_ ), he and Karen were fine, Fisk was still an asshole. 

Foggy sat, and rested his arm on the bed next to Matt, so he could take it if he wanted to. Karen had mentioned something about that, about needing a connection, to stay grounded, or something. He hadn’t really been paying attention - he’d been doing his own research, trying to figure out why someone would go deaf and not have any apparent physical cause. Despite what he’d written, he was starting to wonder if the doctors were right - that it was mental, not physical. That maybe whatever had happened was just too much for him to handle, and he’d shut down. And with all the shit he’d handled so far, well, Foggy couldn’t blame him. He just wished Matt would tell them what had happened. 

He felt Matt’s fingers twitch on his wrist, heard that sharp puff out through the nose, louder than usual. He looked up from the article he was reading.

“What’s going on buddy?”

He didn’t know why he kept talking. Maybe he was hoping that if he kept talking, it would help. Something would break through and it would all go back to normal.

Another puff, and his head jerked down slightly, eyes flitting rapidly back and forth, like…

Like someone dreaming.

Puff. Head to the left.

Christ, was he _reliving_ it?

“Matt. Matty!”

He was going to _kill_ the bastards.

He gently pulled Matt’s hand away from his wrist. Matt turned his head instantly in Foggy’s direction (almost), eyebrows raised like he was asking a question. At least he didn’t look terrified this time. Foggy didn’t think he could handle seeing that particular expression again.

“It wasn’t real buddy, you’re okay.” He traced the letters on Matt’s palm, like Karen had been doing. He looked confused for a moment, then answered, more loudly than he usually spoke.

“Yes.”

Foggy’s phone went off. A text from Karen. A walk-in client had shown up.

“Shit. I’ll be back buddy, I will.”

At least Matt was awake this time. He still felt bad about that, leaving while Matt was asleep, but the guy looked like he hadn’t slept since he got there, and Foggy hadn’t had the heart to wake him up.

His hand hovered around for a bit, torn between wanting to do _something_ to say goodbye, and not wanting to hurt him. 

It eventually settled on top of Matt’s head.

No flinch this time, just surprise.

Good, good that was something.

His phone buzzed again.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”

 


	11. Chapter 11

He had to get out.

The bedsheets alone were enough to drive him to insanity. He felt like his skin had been scraped raw, and the well-meaning nurses just kept covering him back up whenever he couldn’t stand it anymore and ripped them off. The smells burned his nose and the food tasted like anything but food, and the thought of eating it made him sick. It was too much, he couldn’t block it out anymore, couldn’t concentrate on the books or Foggy’s heartbeat, and he knew Karen was worried because he had a permanent grimace on his face and flinched under her touch. He couldn’t help it, and he couldn’t explain it, and he _had to get out_. 

He had been pushing to regain his balance, sitting as straight as he could, moving around as much as the bed would allow, swinging his legs over the side and touching his feet to floor.

He was going to try to stand again, and if he failed, he would crawl out of the hospital on all fours. He couldn’t stay there another moment.

He pushed himself to his feet, unsteady but upright. Slowly he let go of the bed and the table. Still standing.

He shuffled one foot forward, then the other. At least the floor was smooth, even if it was so cold it felt like he was standing on ice.

A hand grabbed his arm - Claire.

 _I have to go home_.

 

************************

 

The taxi ride was disconcerting. He didn’t like not being able to sense the driver, or anything past the seat he was sitting on and the vibration of the engine. It stank of the hundreds of people who had been there before, and every bump and sharp turn sent a flair through his leg.

Karen must have noticed - after the first pothole she had grabbed his hand in both of hers. His other hand had a death grip on the door that he couldn’t seem to relax until they’d stopped.

Too many hands tried to help him out of the taxi. It probably would have gone better if one of them had just offered him an arm to keep his balance and let him figure out the rest himself. 

When they finally got him up and out and leaning on the crutch, he waved away his cane. He was completely disoriented, didn’t even know what direction he should be going, and with only one hand free, it was going to be easier to hold on to Foggy than try to stumble along with the two of them trying to push him in the right direction. Karen put her hand on his other shoulder, and they - slowly - managed to get him to his building.

The elevator was worse than the taxi. It seemed to take forever, and he started to question again whether he wasn’t going to just keep floating up and away and never come back down.

He held on more tightly to Foggy’s arm.

As soon as the elevator stopped, he wanted to run. He would have fallen flat on his face before he made it two steps, but he wanted to anyway. He was so close, and he just wanted to be home, to end this nightmare.

It took everything he had not to sigh in frustration as he waited for Karen to unlock the door.

The moment he stepped inside, he felt something in his chest release. He took a deep breath. The smells were stronger than he was used to, but this was home. Home where there were no chemicals to burn his nose, and where the bed was soft and smooth, and he could _sleep_.

Sleep. He didn’t even care anymore about the void, didn’t care if he fell asleep and woke up floating in nothing and couldn’t get back, he just wanted to sleep, to make it all stop.

He let go of Foggy’s arm and moved on his own. At some point he dropped the crutch, he wasn’t sure when, and stumbled along without it. He thought he felt hands brushing along his arms, his back, catching him once when he tripped over his own feet.

He all but fell into the bed, barely remembering to kick off his shoes and pull off his glasses before burying his head in the pillow.

A few minutes later, when he was halfway between asleep and awake, someone pulled up the blankets he’d forgotten about and ruffled his hair gently, and in that moment before sleep, when reality started to slip, he forgot. He forgot he was blind, and had grown up alone, and gone to college, and become a lawyer, and put on a mask.

He was eight, and his father was saying goodnight, and the world was silent, and dark, because that’s the way it was supposed to be when you went to sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

11:00am

Maybe if she stared at her watch hard enough it would turn out she had the power to make time go backwards.

No such luck.

Foggy was late _again_. Not that it generally mattered that much, they had never kept particularly strict hours, but Foggy was supposed to be meeting a client.

Karen squirmed in her chair. She should have gone and gotten him. But he’d _promised_ he’d be in on time. And he’d made her promise not to go over and drag his ass out of bed again.

She checked her watch.

11:02am

“Shit shit shit shit shit.” She paced the room, shaking her hands in an attempt to calm her nerves. She really didn’t want to cancel the meeting. Partly because he was their only client. Mostly because he was an asshole and she wasn’t sure how she’d react if he started yelling at her again.

Foggy could still make it. Maybe.

11:10am

“Shit!” 

She picked up the phone.

 

************************

 

“Foggy! Foggy open the door!” She pounded her fist against it over and over, not caring if she bothered the neighbours. “Foggy get your ass out here!”

The door cracked open and Foggy stared out at her blearily, hair covering his eyes, wearing nothing but boxer shorts.

“What the hell Karen, I told you not to come.”

“It’s eleven-thirty Foggy.”

“What? Shit!”

He slammed the door in her face.

“Foggy!” She banged on it again.

“Sorry.” He opened the door and she followed him in.

The apartment stank of beer; clothes and files and _stuff_ strewn everywhere, an even bigger mess than last time. Foggy was running around making things worse as he tried to find the least wrinkled suit.

“I cancelled your appointment.”

“What?” He paused halfway through buttoning up his shirt. He’d put the first button through the wrong hole and it was lopsided. One pant leg was rolled up to his calf. He hadn’t found any socks yet. “Oh god no, he’s awful, how much did he yell?”

“A lot. I promised you’d buy him lunch tomorrow.”

“Aw no Karen-”

“It’s your own fault Foggy! You made me promise not to wake you up, you said you’d be on time.”

“I know, I was going to, I swear! I don’t know what happened.”

“How much did you drink last night?”

“What is that supposed to- I didn’t- just a couple, no more than usual.”

“You look hung over Foggy.”

“I’m not! I’m just- I’m tired, I can’t sleep, okay? I just, I can’t stop seeing…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her hands on the tourniquet, felt the blood soaking through her skirt, heard the paramedic yelling at her to _stop, stop what are you doing, let go of that! Why didn’t you stay on the phone!_ and the permanent knot in her stomach tightened even more. 

She shook her head, trying to get the images out, and Foggy must have taken it for disbelief, because he continued.

“Okay, I might be… I may have… I may have had too much, but last night was the only time, I swear. I thought it would help, I…” His face seemed to crumple in on itself, his voice coming out as a strangled squeak. “I don’t know what to do.”

He slumped into a chair, hunched over his knees, covering his face with his hands. _No, no, no_ , she’d been trying so hard to keep him together, terrified that if one of them gave up and fell apart, they all would, and there’d be nothing left but broken, lonely pieces that wouldn’t fit back together. 

She couldn’t let it happen. She wouldn’t.

She knelt in front of him and pulled his hands away from his face.

“What’s wrong, Foggy?”

Stupid question. Everything was wrong. 

He stared at her hands, still holding his. When he finally spoke, Karen could barely hear him.

“I’m never gonna be able to talk to him again.”

He looked completely broken. She cast around for something, anything to give him.

“Yes you will. I’m sure there’s something you can use that’ll work with his braille reader.”

“That’s not… that’s not what I meant. It won’t be the same.”

“I know.” She squeezed his hands, leaning her forehead against his. “He might get better Foggy, you can’t give up yet.”

She’d repeated the words so many times they were starting to lose their meaning. 

“He can’t see me, now he can’t hear me, what am I gonna be to him? Cheap cologne and braille? Talking was all we had.”

“You still have this Foggy.” She squeezed his hands harder, holding them up in front of his face. “You can still _be there_ , you can still lead him, and protect him, and yell at people for being ableist assholes, just like you always have. He’s going to need you to do that for him now more than ever. And we’ll find something better than braille, okay? We will, I’m not letting you lose your best friend.”

His head dipped down farther.

“I think I already have.”

She grabbed his face, forcing him to look her in the eye. His cheeks were wet.

“Matt is not fucking dead, Foggy. He’s still there, he’s still Matt, he’s still your friend. He just can’t do everything he used to, and you need to deal with it, because he needs you if he’s going to get through this. I can’t pull him through on my own.”

He averted his eyes and stayed silent for a long time. Then he sniffed once and set his jaw. “Okay.” He sat up straighter, and Karen let her hands drop. “Okay. I’m gonna…” he swallowed, his voice was still shaky. “I’m gonna go see him today.”

“Absolutely not.”

“But you-”

“You are not going to see Matt until you’re fucking sober.”

“I _am_ sober.”

“Well you can’t go over there smelling like Foggy’s Brewery, and you definitely can’t go over there falling apart like this, that’s not fair to Matt.”

“I’m fine.”

“Two minutes ago you weren’t, and you’re not seeing him until you can show me that you can keep your shit together for longer than that.” His hands were shaking slightly. She took them.  “Have you eaten anything today?”

“No. I wasn’t even awake until you got here.”

“How about yesterday?”

“I don’t, um…”

She’d been practically force-feeding him lunch all week. It seemed to end up in the garbage more often than not. She tried to look around discretely. In all that mess there wasn’t a single plate or takeout container, not even a pizza box. There was _always_ a pizza box.

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Dunno.”

“You mean Foggy ‘Second Breakfast’ Nelson doesn’t remember the last time he had food?”

He cracked a smile. There we go!

“Alright listen, you go have a shower, I’m gonna make us some lunch, and then I’m gonna go check on Matt while you do whatever you need to do to pull yourself back together, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And when I leave, you’re going to call me the moment you start feeling like this again, right?”

“Alright.”

She put a pot on the stove to boil, and once she heard the shower going, threw open the windows, and started cleaning things up. Clothes in the hamper, books and papers stacked on the table, and several days worth of beer bottles down the garbage chute in the hallway.

She hoped that a clean apartment and a good meal and the threat of not being allowed to see Matt would stop him spiralling down any further, at the very least let him pretend he was okay.

She silenced the voice telling her that she was pretending too, pushed it to the farthest corner of her mind, along with the knot in her stomach and the boulder sitting on her chest, threw it all away like she had thrown away the clothes that she knew she would never wear again even after the blood was gone.

She wasn’t pretending. She _was_ okay. She was okay, because _one person_ in this messed up little family had to be okay so they wouldn’t just fly apart.

She would drag them through this in one piece if it killed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Missleemoore for being my beta on this one!
> 
> Also thanks to confusedrambler, r3zuri, and shot-of-patron for helping me get my head un-stuck
> 
> And to the anon who made me realize that I wasn't quite clear enough back in chapter 3 that KAREN HAD NO IDEA WHAT SHE WAS DOING AND DID COMPLETELY THE WRONG THING
> 
> DON'T DO WHAT KAREN DID
> 
> STAY ON THE PHONE AND LISTEN TO THE 911 OPERATOR
> 
> This has been a PSA


	13. Chapter 13

The change was almost immediate, once they’d brought him home, despite their concerns. His face had relaxed, shoulders straightened. He had already abandoned the crutch against a wall, though the limp was still prominent. And he had stopped flinching away from everything. She had told herself that it was the hospital, stirring up bad memories. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t been to a hospital - or even to a doctor’s office - since the accident when he was a kid. 

She didn’t want to think about the other reasons someone might flinch like that. She had tried to bring it up as casually as possible with Foggy, before the downward spiral that started the moment they’d brought Matt home, like he had expected that to fix everything instantly. He insisted that no, no, Matt’s childhood had been a craptastic shit-show, but nothing like _that._ He just had those crazy blind-person senses and things got a bit too intense sometimes, when he was stressed out, which he definitely was. Still, something was just _not normal_ about the way he’d been at the hospital, and she _was_ going to get a proper answer from Matt about it. Later though, when he was better.

He was sitting in a chair when she entered, reading - Foggy had brought him the files for that ass of a client they’d taken on, at Matt’s insistence. He paused as she got closer, fingers hovering above the page, and took a deep breath.

“Karen?”

She’d been a bit taken aback, the first time she’d entered and he somehow knew she was there. After a moment she realized it must have been her perfume, and she had made sure to use the same one. She hadn’t thought it was that strong - she wasn’t even halfway across the room yet - but then, crazy blind-person senses.

He put the stack of papers on the table and stood slowly, reaching out for her. There was a flash of fear when he couldn’t find her, and she rushed forward to take his hand. He relaxed immediately and smiled, then started patting his pockets, searching for…

His glasses.

They were on the arm of the chair. She passed them to him.

She wished he didn’t feel the need to wear them around her. She wished she could figure out some way to tell him that she didn’t care if his eyes wandered or stared, that it didn’t bother her if he never looked at her, that he didn’t have to hide behind them all the time as though every secret would be revealed if he took them off. But it was a conversation that she knew would never happen, because seeing the real Matt Murdock wasn’t something you asked for, it was something you earned, and Foggy was the only one who had. And even that she wouldn’t have known, if Matt didn’t have a tendency to forget that their offices were separated by windows instead of walls.

She pulled on his arm gently, indicating that he should follow.

He took her elbow, and picked up his cane from where it was propped up against the chair. It hadn’t occurred to her that he relied on his hearing so much that he would need it in his own apartment. 

He had lost weight. The nurse had mentioned he wasn’t eating (she thought the statement had been followed by a muttered “goddamned idiot”). They had searched his kitchen for food when they brought him home, and he really hadn’t been lying about not keeping much around, that night she’d stayed over. So she had made food that he could just stick in the microwave or eat cold, and meticulously labelled all the containers in braille, with descriptions and instructions. Everything was bland, at Foggy’s suggestion. It was something he’d noticed when they were in college, whenever they were coming up to an exam or the deadline for an essay. Matt tended to avoid anything with even a little bit of spice - he didn’t even use _salt_ \- when he was sick or stressed. If he ate at all, which he often didn’t, to Foggy’s (and now Karen’s) distress. “Sensitive stomach” was the only explanation Foggy had ever gotten out of him.

She had made a very stern _this-food-had-better-all-be-gone-when-I-get-back_ label and stuck it to several of the containers.

She passed them to him one at a time, letting him read the labels and put them away so he’d know exactly where everything was. He got to her message, and she caught the barest hint of eye-rolling behind the glasses as he turned his head.

“You brought too much last time.”

She shoved his arm - one tap on the arm meant “no” but he and Foggy were _pissing her off_ with this not-eating thing so this time it was a shove, to get the point across. No, she hadn’t brought too much, she’d brought exactly enough for three meals a day and less than half of it had been eaten. 

She was tempted to tell him about Foggy and guilt him into eating, but for now she’d go with stern braille labels.

At least he was talking. He was a little bit louder than before, and he stuttered and paused and swallowed his words even more than usual, but it was such a relief to hear him speaking again. 

She dumped one of the containers - rice - into a bowl and heated it as he put the rest away. When he was finished, she guided him to the dining table, placed the bowl in front of him, and shoved a fork into his hand.

“I’m not hungry.”

 _Stop being such a fucking child Matt_.

She wasn’t sure if he could feel her glaring at him, but she hoped he could.

_I’m not leaving until you eat._

He sighed and slowly dug his fork into the bowl, scowling like a kid being forced to eat broccoli.

Karen nodded, satisfied, and started wandering around the apartment, checking for anything he might trip over, putting pillows and blankets back into place, clearing away cobwebs that had gathered in the corners.

She stopped when she heard the chair scrape back.

Jesus he must have inhaled that rice because all of it was gone already, why the _hell_ wasn’t he eating if he was that hungry?

He picked up the bowl and took it to the sink, tapping the cane against the base of the counter when he was just about within arm’s reach, as though checking to make sure it was still in the same place.

She hurried over and tried to gently push him out of the way. She didn’t know why exactly, she just felt like he shouldn’t be doing anything other than eating and sleeping and getting better, and washing dishes wasn’t any of those things.

“It’s fine Karen, I don’t need to hear to do this,” he said, smiling in that way he did whenever she tried to be helpful but he didn’t actually need help. A real smile, not the smile of relief when she or Foggy took his hand, but an actual, happy, almost-laughing smile.

So she stood, and she watched him washing the bowl, and it just was so… normal. He was smiling, and talking, and relaxed, and he was _Matt_. Not the scared, broken thing from the hospital, he was _Matt_. 

And he was okay. He wasn’t better, maybe he’d never be _better_ , but he was okay. 

She’d make sure Foggy could see him tomorrow. Spend the whole day if he wanted, she didn’t care if she had to talk to that awful client and cancel his meeting again. Foggy had to see Matt like this, being Matt, being normal, and maybe _he’d_ go back to normal, and then they could _all_ go back to normal.

Her eyes were stinging, and she blinked hard. This was happy, she should be happy, she should be dancing, Matt was _back_ and everything was going to be okay.

_“You can’t go over there falling apart like this, it’s not fair to Matt.”_

She couldn’t do what she had just told Foggy not to. She was stronger than this, and she would hold it the hell together until she walked out that door. She scrunched her eyes shut and bit her tongue. She had held it together since this whole thing started, no crying or screaming or freaking out, not once, even though there were times she’d wanted to, and it was going to stay that way. She was not going to start crying now, not over Matt washing a goddamn bowl. 

She was the anchor holding them together, and she couldn’t do that if she started to crumble. But Matt seemed so… the only word she could find was _stable_ , and maybe… maybe that meant that she could let go now, just a little…

_Karen Page you are a grown-ass woman, keep your shit together!_

Maybe she could let go a little, but that didn’t mean she could do it standing right next to him. She pressed her palms to her eyes, breathed slowly and carefully. She just had to tell him she needed to get back to the office. It wouldn’t take very long, an “O” traced on his palm or his arm, a quick hug goodbye, and then she could run for the door and deal with this bullshit out in the hallway. It would take one minute. She just needed to last one minute.

“Um…”

She pulled her hands away from her eyes. Matt was facing her, head angled down to the floor, fidgeting with the cane.

“Do you, um… I, I don’t uh…”

He was moving his head back and forth, like he was looking for something. Her eye was caught by the scrapes on his face, nearly healed now, but all she could see was his hair sticking to the blood, and the open wound on his leg, and her hands, and the paramedic scolding, and the other one assuring her that it was fine, they’d fix it, it wasn’t that bad, but it didn’t make her feel any less awful, any less of a screw-up, and-

“Do… W-would you…” The fidgeting got worse, he didn’t seem to have actually thought about what he was going to say before he started talking. “…like a cup of coffee? Before you leave?”

It clicked into place suddenly. He’d been trying to figure out something they could still do together, something normal that friends would do, when one of them hadn’t almost died. And then _that_ image was floating in front of her, the one that she’d been trying not to think about, the one that had been skirting around the edges of her mind, that she wouldn’t allow to form fully, because it _hadn’t happened_ so she just wasn’t going to think about it.

A trail of blood, leading from the street, to their hallway, to Matt, crumpled outside their office, reaching for the door. 

It had been pure chance that she and Foggy had stayed so late. They hadn’t even been doing any work. She’d been helping Foggy frantically fill out a form before the five o’clock deadline, and somehow it had turned into an hours-long conversation about terrible bosses and the best place to get Indian food and old movies and… and they’d just realized what time it was, they’d been just about to leave. If Foggy hadn’t forgotten about that form until the end of the day, if he hadn’t cracked that joke when they finally finished it, if there hadn’t been leftover takeout in the fridge, if they hadn’t lost track of time, if Matt had been five minutes later, if so many little things hadn’t happened exactly the way they did… 

They wouldn’t have been there. No one would have been there. No one would have found him. Not until the morning. Not until he had spent his last few moments in pain and terrified and completely alone.

She clapped a hand over her mouth and turned away, holding onto the counter because suddenly she wasn’t sure her legs were there any more.

“Karen?”

He sounded concerned, and _no, no that’s not fair, he shouldn’t have to be worried about you, hold it together!_

“I’m fine,” she choked out.

 _He can’t hear you_.

It all came crashing down around her. A hand skidded across her back, looking for her shoulder, turning her around. Another fumbled for her cheek, wiping away tears, and she couldn’t look at his face because she didn’t want to see it, couldn’t bear to think that the smile had disappeared because of her when he’d only just found it again.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” He was pulling her in close, one hand behind her head, and she was sobbing against his shoulder. He sounded confused but he wasn’t asking why, and she was so grateful for that, because she wasn’t even sure of the answer herself. And then she realized he wasn’t asking because there was no way for her to answer him. “It’s fine, it’s fine, I’m fine.” No, no, no, none of this was fine. She was supposed to be holding them together, because Foggy couldn’t, and Matt shouldn’t have to, and here she was falling apart all over him and getting tears and snot and everything all over his hoodie. She was aware that she was sliding down, pulling him over with her, but she just couldn’t get her legs under her. She tried to push away, she’d rather end up on the floor than mess up his leg again, but he just readjusted his arms, pulled her back up, and held on more tightly.

“It’s fine, Karen. This is fine. It’s okay.” She realized he was rocking side to side slowly, and she wasn’t sure how long he’d been doing that, but it was reassuring somehow. She closed her eyes, forced herself to take a breath without gasping or shuddering, held it for a moment, breathed out again slowly. Did it again. And again. Matt’s arms relaxed as she started to calm down. The tears were still there, close to the surface, the images - real and imagined - still floating around in her head, but they were the past, and they didn’t matter so much any more. Suddenly she felt ridiculous, and she almost wanted to laugh at all the crying and weak knees and drama, at how terrified she’d been of losing control. She’d fallen apart and nothing bad had happened. Matt hadn’t crumbled to dust under her weight, Foggy was still back in his apartment completely unaware, and her life had not imploded.

She pushed away again, and this time he let her. She went to the sink to wash her face, felt his hand brush her back again a moment later as he searched for her, and when she was done, looked up to see him holding out a towel.

She realized suddenly that she had no way to say thank you, but before her brain could grind into gear and figure out something that he would understand, her hand was on his elbow, and he was leading her. The cane bumped against the island, a dining chair, the couch, and as they sat, she realized something else: he had taken off his glasses. She didn’t know why, and she knew he would never say and she would never ask, but if she had to guess, it was his way of putting them back on equal footing.

“Are you okay?”

Two taps on the arm for yes - it was an automatic response to the question, but later she realized that she had meant it. That, most of the time, the weight on her chest was gone, the memories easier to let go of. She wasn’t better yet either, but she would be.

She hesitated for a moment, then touched his leg, pressing maybe a little harder than she should have. She hadn’t been paying enough attention to notice whether the limp was any worse, and she needed to make sure he wasn’t hiding it, because she knew what the answer would be either way. But he didn’t jump away, didn’t hiss in pain, and his eyes, staring up at the ceiling somewhere, stayed steady. The only movement he made was to tilt his head, like he was trying to hear her.

“No, you didn’t hurt me, don’t worry.”

She kept scrutinizing his face anyway, looking for anything that might give away a lie. The corners of his mouth started twitching, like he was trying to hold back a smile.

“Y’know, if I’d known you hated coffee so much, I wouldn’t have offered.”

She punched his arm, and he laughed. That big, head-thrown-back laugh, because he was always so proud of his own stupid jokes that he couldn’t help laughing at them like an idiot.

He was definitely back.

What an ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Missleemoore for beta'ing!


	14. Chapter 14

Everything was under control. Everything was going to be fine. _He_ was going to be fine. 

The day they brought him home from the hospital he had slept - actually slept, not that drifting half-sleep - for the first time in…

Honestly, he didn’t know how long. He hadn’t had his watch in the hospital - still didn’t, actually. He couldn’t remember what had happened to it, and it was such a stupid, unimportant thing to ask for help over.

It had felt like weeks, anyway. But when he woke up, things started getting better. It took a couple of days before he was able to banish the panic that had kicked his senses into overdrive, and every time Foggy or Karen or Claire entered the apartment, he couldn’t help thinking, just for a second, that it wasn’t actually them, that someone had figured out who he was and decided to come after him when he was vulnerable. But he had managed to pull his senses back under control, back to a tolerable, almost normal level, and his control was getting better every day.

He was still having trouble with taste, though. It was like he’d developed an aversion to food in general, thanks to days of hospital food that churned his stomach, and despite his hunger and the fact that he _knew_ he needed to eat, the thought of eating made him want to sprint to the bathroom. But once he made the jump from _not-eating_ to _eating_ and got that first mouthful down, everything was fine, and he had to keep reminding himself of that, because Karen had noticed. 

It hadn’t occurred to him that she would, or that she would go to so much trouble, for _him_. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would be so worried that she nearly collapsed on his kitchen floor. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it, and the guilt gnawed at him. He shouldn’t have made her worry, shouldn’t have been so selfish, should’ve been trying harder to keep up appearances. 

Foggy, at least, seemed to be fooled. Either that, or he didn’t care. He wasn’t around as much as Karen, and when he was, their interactions were brief. Matt missed him. There was no other way to put it, he _missed_ him. But that, he chided himself, was selfish too. Foggy deserved to live his life, and Matt would not drag him down because of sentimentality. 

He was moving around more, but had soon realized that he didn’t have the apartment memorized quite as well as he had thought. He relied on the constant feedback of sound - the buzz of the sign outside, the creak of floorboards, the way the sound of his footsteps changed when he was near a wall - to keep himself oriented as he moved, the same way a sighted person relied on images. Take that away, and even though he knew the precise layout of the apartment, he didn’t have enough information to gauge exactly where he was as he moved. But he was determined. He would recreate his mental map, learn to track distance based purely on the length of his stride rather than relying on external cues.

That is, until he got cocky and slammed his foot into the couch leg. And if anyone wanted his opinion, bashing your little toe into the heavy wooden leg of a couch was much worse than having your thigh sliced open. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the residents on the first floor had heard him cursing.

So he used the cane, though as sparingly as possible, just to confirm the position of potentially toe-breaking furniture. A part of him, the voice that wasn’t quite his own, kept saying he shouldn’t use it, shouldn’t need it, not in his own apartment. He should have learned all of this long ago. He would learn from his mistakes faster without the cane. Pain was the best teacher.

But the other part of him - the one that had insisted on silk sheets - thankfully, kept winning, so Matt kept using the cane.

And he _was_ learning. He was figuring out how to interpret the tiny vibrations in the floor, the little changes in the air as he moved, but it was difficult. Sometimes he found himself concentrating so hard on what they meant - was that someone knocking on his door? Walking by in the hallway? - that he didn’t even realize he had stopped mid-stride and was standing stock-still in the middle of the apartment. It was exhausting, and it didn’t take very long before he found himself curling up in those silk sheets and blocking everything out again. But he was getting better at it.

He had even - and he couldn’t help being a little bit proud - made it down to the lobby to check his mail. He had managed to make it down without passing anyone - he didn’t want to have to try to answer questions he couldn’t hear - but wasn’t sure about the way back up. By then his leg hurt and his socks felt like sandpaper and he was concentrating more on not pulling his shirt up over his face to block the smells than on whether there was anyone else around. 

But he’d done it. He wanted to sleep for a week by the time he got back, but he’d done it. He wasn’t completely useless. Maybe… maybe he could live like this. 

Sometimes he thought it was a punishment, for the things he’d done in the mask. Sometimes he thought it was a warning, that he should stop before he got himself in too deep. 

He had been without the mask once. Maybe he could go back to that. Go back to just being a lawyer, to helping people that way. He didn’t think he’d be able to do much in the courtroom - it wouldn’t exactly be easy to question a witness or gauge the reaction of a jury when he couldn’t see _or_ hear them - but he could still do research, he was good at that. 

Yes, he could do that. Even if Foggy didn’t want to work with him anymore, even if he had to find another firm, he could do that. And maybe, when he couldn’t hear the screams and the sirens and the crying, he could pretend they weren’t there, wouldn’t find himself on the street in the middle of the night beating the people who caused them. 

But then he remembered Fisk, and the Russians, and the little girl crying, the one who had started it all, and a rage burned in his chest that he didn’t know how to get rid of without using his fists. His legs itched to run, itched for the freedom of the rooftops, but all he could do was pace the apartment until the itch and the fire died down. He was reckless, yes, but he wasn’t stupid. Even with two good legs, he wouldn’t make it to the next rooftop, and then he’d be no good to anybody. 

And then the softer voice, the one that had insisted on silk sheets and a cane, told him that maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing. It was a reason, a very good reason, to stop being the Man in the Mask. This was his chance at a normal, safe life - as normal a life as you could have when you were blind and deaf and could tell what your (possibly former) best friend had eaten for breakfast three days ago, anyway. And the weight lifted off his shoulders, and he could breathe.

Maybe he could live like this. Maybe it wasn’t a punishment, or a warning. Maybe it was a blessing. Maybe it was a reward. _You can stop now. You’ve done enough._

And in those moments, he didn’t care how he had lost his hearing or why it hadn’t come back yet. He wasn’t even sure he _wanted_ it back. As much as he needed - _wanted_ , he corrected himself - to be the Man in the Mask, as much as he _enjoyed_ being the Man in the Mask in some sick way he didn’t like to think about, he did not enjoy what came with it. The near-constant state of injury and pain that he had to spend so much energy hiding day after day. The fatigue he tried to drown in caffeine. The gnawing guilt over the secrets he was keeping and the terrible things he was doing. But now, the pain had all but gone for the first time in a very long time. He got tired easily, but it was a different kind of tired, and he wasn’t constantly fighting to stay awake. And he knew, he _knew_ that the moment his hearing came back - if it came back - he would forget all about this, and go right back to that life. So he didn’t push, he didn’t try, he focused on the present, on coping with what he had.

But eventually, the need to know won out. 

His theory, that it was the lightning in the alley that had caused it, wasn’t sitting right anymore. He didn’t remember being hit by it, didn’t have any burns anywhere on him, and that wild, erratic lightning had been too intense to be so precise. He was missing something. Either that, or… or the doctors were right, and it was his own mind betraying him, and not for the first time. The form might be different, but the fight was one he was all too familiar with. And if it was true, if it was _him_ , and not something that had happened in the alley, then he had to do something about it. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t at least try to fight it.

So he had to know.

He was hesitant to dig for that memory though. He had managed to get a strong enough grasp on the world again that he no longer felt the void pulling at him, but the memory of it haunted him. He had no one there to anchor himself to while he meditated, and that had never ended well at the hospital, even when he didn’t try to go too deep. And he couldn’t explain to anyone what he was doing and what he needed, it would raise too many questions. Well maybe, maybe Claire, but… no, he couldn’t ask her to spend her precious time off holding his hand just because he was afraid of shadows created by his own mind.

He would just have to be careful, ease himself into it slowly, only go as deep as he needed to find the information. He could do it. He could do it alone. And he would be just fine.

He sat, and worked at pushing all the sensations away, until he could just barely feel the floor beneath him. He cleared away the jumbled thoughts in his head one at a time, until all that was left was the memory he was looking for. He plucked at it, trying to bring the whole thing out into the open.

It had been a fairly quiet night, and he had been leaping from one roof to the next for the pure joy of it. 

The air had changed suddenly, filled with the crackling, electric energy of a brewing storm. He had stopped, listening intently. There was someone in the alley below. A kid, all alone, heart beating too fast. It was late, not safe for anyone, let alone a kid, to be out on their own, and something felt very, very wrong. He found a fire escape, climbed down silently, and as his foot touched the ground, the storm burst open.

 

**********

 

_“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry!”_

_“It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you, just calm down.”_

_“I can’t! I can’t make it stop! I’m sorry!”_

_He clapped his hands over his ears as another deafening crack of thunder filled the alley. It was too much, he was starting to loose control himself, and everything was screaming at him to run, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t just leave the kid there alone._

_“Go away, I can’t-”_

_The words were drowned out by another bang._

_“It’s okay, I can help.” He didn’t know_ how _he was going to help, but he would try, anyway. The ringing in his ears cleared, and he took a tentative step towards the muffled sobs coming from somewhere near the dumpster. “Why are you here alone?”_

_“D-didn’t want to hurt anyone. My mom…”_

_Matt flinched as another bolt of electricity cracked overhead._

_“Has this happened before?”_

_“No, not- not like this.”_

_He kept moving. It was hard to tell exactly where the kid was, everything sounded muffled and distant, and he hoped he hadn’t permanently damaged his ears._

_There was a gasp, followed by a scream - he must have finally come into full view of the kid._

_“No! No stay away!”_

Mask, mask! _He scrabbled at the cloth covering his face as he dropped into a crouch._

_“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay, I’m not the bad guy like they say.”_

_“No, no, don’t wanna hurt-”_

_The bolt hit the dumpster, throwing debris everywhere. Then another and another and the whole world was a never-ending roll of thunder. Something sliced through his leg, something else slammed into him and he felt his shoulder pop as his head hit the wall, and he slid to the ground. He tried to get up, tried to cover his ears, but his limbs felt like lead._

_“…sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry…”_

_The world faded back into existence as the thunder faded out. Footsteps were running towards him and something dropped to the ground. Fingers were tugging at the mask he hadn’t had time to remove._

_“Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, I’m sorry, please don’t be dead.”_

_There was a small, sharp jolt from each of those fingertips as they ran over his head._

_“No-”_

_And everything disappeared._

 

**********

 

He rolled the memory around in his mind, not sure what to do with the information now that he had it. He had a cause, a real, physical cause. It wasn’t whatever mental disorder the doctors had started suspecting, he couldn’t just find some way to _will_ his hearing to come back. 

And the chances of finding the kid again… well, they weren’t good, especially when he was barely capable of making it to the lobby and back, let alone searching the city for one little kid who he wouldn’t even be able to identify, and who probably wouldn’t be able to help anyway.   

So he didn’t need to feel guilty about just sitting back and letting things take their course. He would hear again, or he wouldn’t, and he would live with it either way.  

He let the memory roll away, let the peace wash over him as his thoughts wandered into the background and made an empty space for him to relax into. It had been too long since he’d done this properly, and it was a welcome relief. He focused his energies towards healing his leg, and as he did, one small thought made itself known - soon, he would not need to do even that. He would be able to just enjoy the peace, and he felt a smile spreading across his face as the thought drifted away again.

He could live this life.

He started to slowly make his way back to the real world, searching for the feel of the floor beneath him and the air around him.

He couldn’t find it.

He reached out farther, and farther, and he couldn’t find it. Panic was rising up in his throat.

He was stuck.

And this time he wasn’t floating. This time he was falling.

He tried to stand, but he couldn’t tell if he had.

He was falling. Slowly at first, but steadily moving faster and faster, falling into a blackness that wasn’t at all like the one that had fallen in front of his eyes all those years ago and never gone away. It was _solid_ , and it swallowed him and dragged him down.

_It’s not real, it’s not real. You fell asleep, it’s not real._

He tried to yell, but he knew no sound came out. The darkness filled his lungs and choked the air out of him. It filled his head and pushed out everything, every image and sound and word he’d known, until it was everywhere, and there was nothing left but fear.

He scrabbled and tore and clawed at it like an animal as it pressed in closer, smothering him, dragging him down farther and farther.

He was dying. _He was dying_.

He wasn’t afraid of dying, he wasn’t, he _wasn’t_. He’d said that over and over, he’d known it always, but this wasn’t what dying was supposed to be, this wasn’t what he’d been told it would be. 

Devil. They called him the Devil.

It wasn’t enough. The things he’d done… the reasons he did them, the penance, the confession, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough. 

He tried to dig his fingers in, pull himself back up. He didn’t know if he was. Couldn’t tell if he was moving, or just imagining that he was.

The darkness pulled, and he felt hands. Hands on his legs, dragging him down faster, grabbing at his arms, pinning them to his sides.

Devil, they had called him.

He latched onto the only thing he could remember, the only words he could recall: the prayer. The prayer he’d learned as a child. The prayer they’d all learned. The one he’d repeated dutifully every night and every morning since. 

When he got to the end, he said it again. And again. And he clung to each word. Maybe if he said it enough, maybe if he really _meant_ it, it would keep the demons at bay.

Devil, they called him.

And there was only one place fit for a devil.


	15. Chapter 15

“Hey Matt!”

He hoped he would hear a response, but it didn’t come. Foggy made as much noise as he could. Even if Matt couldn’t hear him, maybe he’d feel the vibrations of the door slamming and Foggy stomping his feet and not be caught totally off guard.

“Matt! Matty Matty Matty! Ma-”

Matt was standing in the middle of the apartment, head tilted up towards the stairs.

“Matt what-”

He was _shaking_ , sucking down air like he was drowning, fingers twitching.

“Shit!”

Foggy stepped forward cautiously and reached out. His hands and feet had suddenly gone numb, and he wasn’t sure where his heart was, but it wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

“Matt?” He put a hand on his shoulder, shook it gently. No reaction.

Between breaths he was mumbling something. Just snatches, two or three words at a time, never quite completing the sentences. But Foggy recognized it - even _he_ knew that prayer. It seemed wrong to hear him saying it. Matt had always kept his religion and his beliefs so private, and Foggy felt like he was intruding.

But this wasn’t a private moment he’d stumbled on accidentally, it was terror, and he had to do something about it. 

He grabbed Matt’s hand, and Matt wheeled around, twisting away violently, eyes wide with fear. He lost his balance and dropped like a stone. Foggy dove after him, barely managing to get a hand behind Matt’s head before it hit the floor.

Foggy’s other hand hovered over the phone in his pocket. The hospital had been hell for Matt, and Foggy didn’t want him back there, but maybe he needed to be. He wasn’t sure what he’d just witnessed, the only word that came to mind was _seizure,_ but he was pretty sure that wasn’t what it was, it didn’t seem like any seizure he’d ever seen… hell, what did he know, the only seizures he’d ever seen were fake ones on TV. He’d wait one minute, and then decide. He started counting, slowly.

Matt was blinking rapidly, eyes rolling around uselessly. Conscious, but totally confused. He was still breathing heavily, but with less difficulty. Foggy grabbed his hand from where it was scratching weakly at the floor. Matt’s eyes started to steady.

“Foggy?”

He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until it all rushed out of him. He stopped counting.

“Jesus christ.” He sat back heavily. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Matt struggled to get up. Foggy thought he should probably just lie down a few more minutes, but he had the ultimate excuse to be an idiot and not listen, so Foggy just tried to help as best he could instead. The effort ended with Foggy clutching Matt awkwardly to his chest so he’d have something to lean against while he caught his breath. Which he did for all of about five seconds before he twisted around and backed away until he hit an armchair. He raised his hand, looking like he was going to use the chair to pull himself up, then dropped it. He hunched over, curled his knees up to his chin, and ran his fingers through his hair, grabbing it in his fists.

“I’m sorry.”

The shame in his voice was like a knife to the chest.

“What are you… god, buddy, come on, it’s not you’re fault, what are you apologizing for?”

Foggy scooted over next to him and started untangling Matt’s fingers from his hair. He was still shaking and his hands fell away easily, only to wrap around his knees and hide his face. 

“C’mon man, don’t…” he sighed. No use talking. He pushed himself closer and put an arm carefully over Matt’s shoulders, hoping whatever had happened hadn’t triggered the flinching again. There was none, so he reached around with his other arm as well. Matt was curled up so tight that Foggy ended up draped uncomfortably over his back.

“You’re okay, it’s gone. Whatever that was, it’s done, and I’m not gonna let it happen again, okay?” He kept babbling on and on, not always sure what he was talking about, or if he was making sense, but it didn’t really matter. He couldn’t bear silence, not anymore.

Matt relaxed slowly and the shaking became intermittent. His arms unfolded, knees dropped, and Foggy moved into a (slightly) more comfortable position so Matt could lean back against his shoulder. 

“There, that’s better, right?”

Matt had to be as uncomfortable as he was, sitting on the floor for so long. He spelled out “COUCH” on his arm, and Matt nodded.

It was like trying to lift a two-hundred-pound rag-doll. Matt had nothing left to give. Foggy didn’t think he would have managed it if they’d had to go farther than the few steps it took to drag him to the couch. He tried to sit Matt down as gently as possible, but got pulled over with him, and the short drop had him clinging to Foggy as if his life depended on it.

A few minutes passed and he wasn’t letting go or relaxing his grip. It worried Foggy more than almost anything else. Sure, Matt had never been one to shy away from a hug, or the occasional ruffling of his hair when Foggy was feeling especially lucky to have him as his best friend; had never seemed embarrassed to reach out for an arm or a hand or a shoulder when he needed help navigating or orienting himself, or just to make up for the fact that he couldn’t make eye contact. But this was so far beyond any of that.

A pit formed in Foggy’s stomach. Had he been holding this back the whole time? He’d been so focused on the flinching and grimacing and pain, he hadn’t even noticed at the time, but he thought back to the hospital, and how had he missed it? If there was an arm or a hand in reach, Matt would take it. When Karen hugged him, he held on, even when things started getting bad and it looked like he was fighting not to recoil. He was never the one to break the contact, and why would he when he had nothing else? But Matt being Matt, he would never ask for anything, probably felt guilty taking what little he had. And Foggy had just _sat_ there, and not offered _anything_. And now it had all bubbled over into some weird panic attack or something and…

He had all but run away, apologized for leaning on him.

God, what must Matt have thought of him? 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He was holding on as tightly as Matt was. “I’m so sorry Matty, I messed up, I didn’t even think…”

How long had he been like that before Foggy got there? What if this wasn’t the first time? Most of the time he was alone, because Matt had insisted, and they assumed he was being truthful when he said he would be fine on his own, that he would _rather_ be on his own, so he could figure things out for himself. Karen could be forgiven, she hadn’t known him that long, didn’t know how good he was at covering it up when everything was falling apart inside. But Foggy knew better, after all the shit he’d helped Matt through in college. He didn’t think he could forgive himself for being so focused on what he could _see_ \- and on his own fears - that he had missed what Matt was really struggling against.

He didn’t think he could hold on any tighter, but he wanted to. 

He should call Karen. He didn’t want her to worry any more than she already was, but she would want to know. 

He pulled away, expecting resistance, but Matt’s arms dropped immediately, and he drew back into himself. Foggy barely caught the whispered _sorry_.

“What? No, god no, stop apologizing.” It was all he could do not to gather him back up immediately. “I’m just gonna make a phone call, okay? I’m coming back.” Foggy traced the word out on his arm, squeezed his hands, and crossed the room. Even though Matt couldn’t hear him, it just felt wrong to talk about him right there beside him. The phone shook in his hand as he pulled up Karen’s name.

“Hey!” She sounded happy. He took a deep breath.

“Karen, I’m-” crap, why did his voice have to break like that? “I’m not… I’m not coming in today.”

“What happened?” She’d gone serious in a heartbeat. 

“I- I don’t know, I came in, and he was just standing there, and he was shaking, like he was having a panic attack or a seizure or something, and I can’t… I don’t think he should be alone.”

He heard keys jingling.

“I’m coming over.”

“No, no Karen, you don’t have to. You’ve done so much already, just… just take a day off, go home, I’ll look after him. Don’t worry.”

“And what do you think I’ll be doing if I’m at home?”

She hung up.

Foggy sighed and ran a hand over his face. It was probably for the best, she’d been handling all this crap a lot better than he had. He and Matt could both use a more level-headed influence.

He dug out a blanket before returning to Matt, who pulled it tightly around himself. 

“I’m okay now, Foggy. You can leave if you want.”

Another knife to the chest.

“God, I am such an idiot.” He dropped onto the couch and gathered Matt up in his arms. Matt jumped, and Foggy realized he maybe should have warned him, but he didn’t want to give him enough time to think he was being abandoned again.  “I don’t want to leave. I know that messed up brain of yours likes to tell you nobody cares about you, but it’s wrong. And I know you can’t hear me so it doesn’t mean anything, but I don’t want to leave, and I’m sorry for making you think that I ever would.”

Matt didn’t seem to be processing what was happening, and Foggy recognized _that_ from college too, and just stayed the way he was while Matt shifted his worldview back from _nobody cares_ to _I have friends_. After a minute, Matt leaned into him, dropping his head down onto Foggy’s shoulder, and untangling his arms from the blanket to wrap around behind him. Foggy kept talking compulsively. He had so much more he wanted to say, to apologize for, but the words couldn’t decide what order they wanted to come out in, and Matt couldn’t hear him anyway, so he just kept babbling to himself in half-formed sentences, and hoped that by some miracle Matt would understand.

He almost missed it when Matt spoke again, his voice muffled by Foggy’s shoulder.

“Thank you for staying.”


	16. Chapter 16

Something grabbed his hand, something that was real and solid, and he pulled away, intending to strike out now that he had something to strike against. He could feel the floor beneath his feet, and he shifted his weight to get a better swing, only to find his leg collapsing underneath him, and he was falling again, scrabbling for purchase.

The thing grabbed his hand again, and he almost pulled away, but stopped himself. It wasn’t clawed or scaly or leathery, didn’t match any of the hundreds of descriptions of demons or monsters he’d heard. It was soft and, perplexingly, familiar. 

He was flat on his back, another hand under his head. He could feel his heart pounding through his whole body, almost drowning out the pulse in the hand that held his. He tried to bring it in to focus, and the darkness started to recede. 

It was Foggy. It was Foggy, it was Foggy, it was Foggy. Foggy would pull him back.

The air was thick with fear and panic, and he had to get away from it before it pulled him back under. His limbs didn’t want to move properly, and he was being helped up. He could feel Foggy’s heartbeat against his cheek, and he latched on to it, trying desperately to shake the feeling that he wasn’t all there. He tried to match his breathing to Foggy’s - it was too fast, but it was slower and steadier than his own, and slowly his scattered pieces were coming back together.

Too slowly. He didn’t even have a chance to breathe before the voice started in on him again, louder than ever with his defences lost to the void that had tried to swallow him. Foggy was there because he had to be, not because he wanted to be. He wasn’t there to pull him back, wasn’t there to help him, he hadn’t been before, why would he now, why would he want to in the first place? Matt was a burden, shouldn’t need anyone, should’ve been stronger, should be pulling himself out on his own, not expecting someone else to do it for him. The smell of panic was still settled in a suffocating cloud around him. He was slipping again, and Foggy’s heartbeat was disappearing, and he couldn’t reach out for it. Shouldn’t, should handle this on his own. 

His back hit something. Cushioning over a hard frame - one of the chairs in his apartment. He’d nearly forgotten where he was. He reached up to pull himself to his feet, and felt his arm shaking. He wouldn’t be able to, he’d never make it. He ran his fingers through his hair, felt his hands trembling against his skull, too weak to grab hold of anything, even though all he wanted to do was grab and pull and hope the pain woke him up.

Not good enough, _not good enough_ , _try harder_. 

_I’m sorry._

Foggy was pulling his hands away from his hair, and he couldn’t figure out why, couldn’t find his own voice to ask, the other one was too loud. He was stronger than this, should be able to force the darkness out of his head, force his body to stop shaking, stand and walk away, tell Foggy to go home because he was fine.

But he couldn’t, he was too tired, still half in the void that was threatening to claw it’s way back. He did the only thing he felt capable of doing: he curled up in a ball, trying to make himself as small as possible. He would look as pathetic as he felt, and Foggy would leave in disgust.

But it didn’t happen. Before he could do anything about it, Foggy was pressed against his back, arms wrapping around him.

Foggy was still there. 

He was still there, and the other voice had no explanation for that.

But it didn’t matter, he shouldn’t be accepting help, he had to fight his own battles, had to be stronger. How was he supposed to protect people if a _nightmare_ had laid him flat?

Foggy was a warm, comforting weight against his back. He didn’t have the strength to push him away.

Didn’t _want_ to push him away, the softer voice finally broke through for a moment. 

He found Foggy’s heartbeat, the now almost-normal rhythm of his breathing, and tried again to match them. He felt the vibrations in Foggy’s chest as he spoke, could almost imagine the pitch and tone of his words, and focused on the irregular pattern to keep himself from drifting as the last dregs of darkness finally left him.

He uncurled slowly, muscles and joints protesting. Foggy didn’t leave. He wrote something on his arm, and Matt couldn’t make out all the letters, but Foggy seemed to be asking if he wanted to move to the couch. Yes, god yes, anything was better than the floor. But he was so tired, and just standing seemed a gargantuan task.

Foggy heaved him up, and Matt wondered exactly what had happened before Foggy rescued him. He felt like he’d sprinted across the city and back at top speed, all his energy gone, not even enough to keep warm as the change in position allowed cold air to start seeping through his clothes. 

It felt like they were walking forever, and suddenly the world fell out from under him again.

But this time only a moment passed before it came back, and he found himself clinging to Foggy, a point of light pushing the darkness away. 

But Foggy didn’t stay. Matt drew back, guilt clawing at his stomach. He knew if he didn’t, Foggy would stay out of guilt or obligation. He couldn’t do that, shouldn’t. Shouldn’t need Foggy anyway, even though he did. 

Foggy was writing something on his arm again, but he was too drawn into himself to realize it until it was too late to figure out what he’d written. And then he was truly gone, of course he was. He couldn’t stay, not forever, not even if he wanted to. 

He was so tired, he just wanted to sleep. But the moment he thought of it, the memory of clawed hands and cold darkness crawled over his skin. He wouldn’t sleep, and for one brief moment, he wished that a night light would have been anything but useless to him.

He concentrated on his breathing, on his heartbeat, on trying to _feel_ everything. A different kind of meditation. The kind he did when he had to be alert, and focused, and aware. The kind he did in the seconds leading up to a fight. He ran his thumbs over his fingertips, concentrating until he could feel the tiny ridges. His sweater shifted slightly with each breath, the draft from an air vent caught a few stray hairs and brushed lightly against his skin. He tried to ignore the cold and suppress the shivers. The scent of fear still hung in the air, but it wasn’t so all-encompassing. Behind it was the echo of Foggy, too much cologne and the same fabric softener he’d been using since college. And Karen, from the day before. Wisps of perfume and dish soap. Another pang of guilt at everything she’d done for him, and he tried to push it away before it toppled the house of cards he’d built to ground himself. 

A blanket dropped onto his shoulders, and he pulled it tight, trying to drive out the cold, rubbing the seam between his fingers.

Foggy was back. But he couldn’t… he was so confused. The voice that he didn’t want to listen to was still screaming at him. He was the Man in the Mask, he couldn’t have friends, couldn’t accept help like this, it would put them in danger, make him soft.

He tried to push it away and went back to the house of cards. He just had to keep them up. He would be fine as long as he could keep them from falling. He could hold onto them, and he wouldn’t have to worry one way or the other about Foggy, or Karen, or anyone. 

_I’m okay now, Foggy. You can leave if you want._

The words were enough to shake the cards, and Matt held his breath.

And then they scattered everywhere, replaced by something solid. Foggy. Foggy came back. He came back even though Matt told him to leave, and slowly, that voice he hated started to fade. Because of Foggy, always because of Foggy.

He wasn’t the Man in the Mask. Not right now, maybe not ever again.

He didn’t have to protect anyone. 

For right now, for one day at least, he could just be Matt Murdock.

 

**********

 

Karen squeezed in on his other side some time later. He could feel them talking, and would have given anything to hear them. Would have given anything just to know whether they were talking to him or to each other.

Foggy disappeared, though not without squeezing his shoulder reassuringly first. Karen’s arms wrapped around him like she knew exactly what he was afraid of.

Foggy wasn’t long in returning, and what must have been four more blankets were piled over him and Karen before he sat down and wrapped up in one himself. Foggy leaned forward for a few minutes, doing something at the table, Matt guessed, as Karen spoke, her voice buzzing softly against his shoulder. She started shaking suddenly, and her arm moved away, and Matt realized she was laughing. When Foggy leaned back, he was laughing too, and shook Matt’s shoulder like he was trying to include him in the joke. 

Matt smiled instinctively. He was grateful that they weren’t wallowing in what had happened, that they were there but weren’t making a fuss. They were talking and laughing like nothing had happened, and he thought maybe somehow that happiness would transfer to him, even as it made him feel lonelier than ever. 

He couldn’t live like this. He knew they were trying, but it would never be perfect. No matter how hard they tried, he would be left out. Jokes that couldn’t be shared because it would take too long, conversations that couldn’t be had because it would be too much hassle. Walking in silence, working in silence, eating in silence, all but the most basic communication bound to the places where he could easily plug in a laptop and a braille display. And always, always that lingering fear that eventually they would tire of the effort. He leaned into Foggy, fighting back a lump in his throat. Without meaning to - at least, he told himself he hadn’t meant to - he tugged at Karen’s arm, and she pressed in closer. He held on to them, heartbeats, breaths, vibrations as they talked, shaking as they laughed. 

He tried to follow the patterns, tried to imagine their voices, because he didn’t ever want to forget. Karen squeezed his arm, Foggy jumped at the same time, and a moment later they both laughed. He realized they were watching a movie. 

As time went on, the lingering fear of the darkness and the demons in his head faded, kept out by the barrier Karen and Foggy had created on either side. They didn’t leave, and that fear started to fade too, if only for the moment. Karen had fallen asleep against his shoulder. Matt realized his own eyes were closed, the childish vow to never sleep forgotten. Foggy started talking again, even though there was no one to listen, and Matt’s mind was made up.

He did not want to live like this, and he was going to do something about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once again to Missleemoore for beta'ing!


	17. Chapter 17

He woke up very confused and with several blankets - and limbs - twisted around him. It took a few minutes to figure out where he was and why there seemed to be so many people trying to occupy the same space. His head was on Foggy’s stomach, which would have made a very good pillow (and Foggy would have proudly agreed), except that his elbow was hooked under Matt’s chin, and he was pretty sure the miniature earthquakes were being caused by Foggy’s snoring. He was facing the back of the couch and Karen was curled up behind him, half on top of him, squashing his legs down behind the couch cushions. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, and he wondered how he’d managed to sleep through it. He tried to extricate himself as carefully as possible, not wanting to wake them up.

He mainly succeeded in dumping all three of them unceremoniously onto the floor.

**********

Foggy was making some tweaks to Matt’s laptop so it would be easier to navigate with just the braille display. He could have done it himself, but Foggy was faster, not needing to scroll through items individually or fight with voice commands he wouldn’t be able to hear. Karen was sitting beside Matt, arms linked through one of his, and he guessed that she was memorizing everything Foggy did. For Foggy, the various assistive devices Matt used were old hat and hardly worth noticing or mentioning - on the rare occasion Matt got something new, it never took Foggy long to figure out how it worked, and when something inevitably went wrong that Matt couldn’t easily fix without the benefit of sight, Foggy could put everything right again in his sleep.

But for Karen it was all brand new. He couldn’t help but smile at her absolutely genuine curiosity, and the fact that she seemed to have taken it as her duty as their secretary to learn how everything worked in case Foggy wasn’t around to be chief fixer-of-devices.

The braille display was placed very slowly in his lap, and Karen shook with laughter beside him. He guessed that Foggy was hamming it up, probably acting like he was entrusting Matt with the Holy Grail.

**Good morning Sunshine, hope you slept as well as I did.**

Matt grinned, thought for a moment, and chose to speak rather than type.

 _You could sleep on a beehive. You were snoring so loud_ I _could almost hear it._

Karen was doubled-over with laughter beside him.

**You’ll need to give Foggy a minute to pick up his jaw, I don’t think he expected you to be joking about it so soon.**

**I will have you know that I fully support Matthew in making as many jokes about his situation as he likes, and was, in fact, offended by the accusation that I snore.**

It wasn’t long before they were all dissolving into fits of laughter. Foggy and Karen trying to share (or, more accurately, fight over) the keyboard resulted in more accidental keysmashes than Matt could count (and one instance of Foggy playing keep-away with the laptop while trying to type, which mainly resulted in Matt getting tangled in the chord and suggesting that _wireless_ braille display be the next thing on his shopping list). Foggy included descriptions of sounds and tone of voice as naturally as he described visuals, and Karen tried her best to follow suit, though she lacked Foggy’s self-proclaimed “poetic whimsy” (he took offence again when Matt suggested that “poetic snark” might be a more accurate description). They slipped back into their old style of conversation, and laughed at the bumps and hiccups caused by the new means of communication, as though this had been the way things always were. 

It had only been a few weeks, but it felt like years since Matt had held a real conversation with anyone. One that didn’t involve struggling to read the impressions left on paper from a pen, or letters traced out slowly on his hands and arms. One that didn’t take so long to communicate the simplest concepts that nothing was shared unless it was completely necessary. Matt grabbed Foggy in a one-armed hug and grinned against his shoulder, his other hand resting on the braille display.

**Easy buddy, what’s this for? Not that I’m complaining.**

_It’s just… I really missed talking to you guys._

**Well why didn’t you set this up earlier? I could’ve been regaling you with tales of Asshole Client _in real time_.**

Matt hesitated, and something changed suddenly. Foggy pulled away almost imperceptibly and froze, heart beating too fast. The sentence disappeared and a new one replaced it, but Matt didn’t move his hand to read what it said.

 _I don’t know_.

He didn’t. He really didn’t know. It just hadn’t occurred to him. He hadn’t even thought of it. Had somehow forgotten that it was an option even as he lamented that it might be his only means of communication for the rest of his life.

Foggy said something, and Karen left. He said something else, short, sharp, and angry. Matt tensed, not daring to move even though his face was still buried in Foggy’s shoulder, mind racing as he tried to backtrack and figure out what he’d done wrong.

But Foggy just hugged him, fiercely, then typed something else out, and tapped Matt’s hand. He cautiously ran his fingertips over the display.

 **I’m sorry. It’s okay, it’s not your fault. I understand**.

_At least one of us does._

Foggy hugged him again, laughing gently this time, and Matt realized he’d said it out loud. He wondered what else he’d said out loud without meaning to.

**It’s good to have you back buddy.**

Foggy said something else, and Karen returned. Matt could smell hot chocolate.

**Speaking of Asshole Client, let me tell you the grand tale of Karen giving the most epic Fuck Off I have ever seen in my LIFE…**

**********

The conversation moved to focus on Matt so gradually he didn’t even realize it was happening (Foggy had always been good at that). He’d forgotten that they didn’t really know _anything_ about what had happened, and he hadn’t put much thought into his story, somehow not thinking that they would care enough to ask after so much time had gone by. He answered as many questions as he could with “I don’t know” and “I can’t remember”. He couldn’t risk them digging too deeply. There were too many questions he didn’t want them asking. It took less time than he’d expected for Foggy to bring the subject back to more neutral territory, and Matt realized he’d been clenching his jaw and breathing too fast and probably radiating _I don’t want to talk about it_ as loudly as if he’d shouted it. 

He made his escape before the conversation could swing back around to him again, claiming he was tired and making another jab at Foggy’s snoring, which earned him a soft punch in the arm. Karen walked with him, despite his protests, and he was secretly glad - he couldn’t remember where his cane was, and he was fairly certain her subtly tugging him to the left had prevented him from smacking straight into the door frame. Before she left, she guided his hand to the cane leaning against his bedside table, and he wasn’t sure if he was the one who’d put it there.

Truthfully, he was tired, but more than that, he wanted the chance to think, to make a plan, and he knew Foggy and Karen wouldn’t disturb him if they thought he was sleeping. He angrily shoved away the thought that they would leave while he wasn’t paying attention and never come back. He was tired of his own mind trying to make him mistrust the people he cared about, the only ones who actually seemed to care about _him_ , and now that he’d clawed his to the top of that particular hole, he was going to hold on to the edge for as long as he could. 

He slowed his breathing and his heartbeat to normal again. 

_Stop thinking about it, just stop. Make your plan._

There was more wrong with him than just the hearing loss, that much he had figured out. More _new_ things wrong, anyway. What had happened the day before… it wasn’t a panic attack like Foggy had decided it was, at least he didn’t think so. He’d lost all awareness of his surroundings, of his own body, and somehow ended up several feet away from where he’d been when he started meditating even though he’d felt paralyzed. It was more like a dream, a nightmare. It was an extension of the void that followed him constantly. He’d assumed it was an image his mind had created as a result of the vertigo, but he didn’t think that was right anymore. He suspected now that it was separate. The vertigo itself didn’t make sense either - there was nothing actually wrong with his ears, the hearing loss shouldn’t have affected his balance as much as it did for as long as it did. 

He thought back to the alley, to the fingers tugging at his mask, to the barely felt shocks - plural - before the world disappeared.

Who knew how many other things had gone wrong that just hadn’t manifested yet, or that he didn’t even recognize.

He had to find the kid. He’d caused it, maybe he could fix it. He would start at the alley, there had to be _something_ there that hadn’t been washed away or covered up. There had to be, because it was his only chance.

He planned out his moves step-by-step. If he messed this up, he’d be too worn out to try again for a while, and by then what little evidence remained could be gone, if it wasn’t already. He would go as the Man in the Mask, so the kid would know who he was if by some miracle he managed to find him on his first try. In his mind, he was halfway up the stairs before he remembered that he couldn’t jump to the next roof. Fine, he’d climb down to the street.

And in his mind, he was halfway to the fire escape before he remembered that he would need his cane if he expected to go anywhere without tripping over a curb and getting hit by a car. 

And he had planned his movements to the bottom of the fire escape when he remembered that his cane was bright white, and, he thought, possibly visible even if he tried to stick to the shadows.

Not to mention the mask he’d been unofficially named for. But if he went without it, were the rest of the clothes unusual enough to draw attention? Would the kid know who he was?

And once he got to the alley, what then? What if there was something he wouldn’t notice without being able to see or hear? He couldn’t risk missing anything.

He groaned and pushed his face into the pillow.

He was going to need help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Missleemoore for being such an enthusiastic beta once again!


	18. Chapter 18

The new burner phone buzzed in his pocket - Claire letting him know her shift at the hospital would be over soon. If he called back, it meant he was fine. If he didn’t, she would check in before going home to make sure he hadn’t tripped over a chair and knocked himself unconscious.

He considered the phone for a moment, trying to decide whether or not to give the all clear. He checked his watch - Foggy had bought him a new one, after Matt finally got up the courage to ask for help looking for it. Foggy claimed he’d found it on the floor at the office, but Matt could still smell the plastic packaging.

It was past eleven. Matt’s stomach knotted. What right did he have to ask Claire for help after she’d been on shift for god only knew how long? And it wasn’t like it was an emergency. He wasn’t going to die if he couldn’t hear, in fact he’d be less of a burden on Claire, not going out on patrol and getting injured, which he just couldn’t seem to avoid no matter how careful he tried to be.

But he couldn’t sit back any longer and wait to see what happened. He’d made a plan, and not going through with it immediately was making him restless. He couldn’t stand living in this half-world anymore. He had to resist the urge to claw at his ears as though there was something blocking them that he could get out, and along with that, the old urge to claw at his eyes resurfaced. He needed _something,_ some kind of input that would let him at least navigate his own apartment, connect with people even when they were out of reach. He paced one small, clear section of the floor - he gave some bullshit answer to Foggy, who walked with him sometimes, about it being physiotherapy - until his leg was hurting so badly he couldn’t stand it. Then he would sit on the couch and pick at the hem of his sweater - trying, and sometimes failing, not to pick at the half-dissolved stitches that were becoming more and more irksome by the day - until Karen would distract him with conversation, or food, or anything he could fidget with or pick at that wasn’t his own skin or clothing. He couldn’t seem to make himself stop, and he wondered briefly why this seemed to be the only thing they didn’t ask him about, but was relieved he didn’t have to provide an explanation.

He flipped the phone open and closed a few times. There was always tomorrow night. Maybe tomorrow night she wouldn’t be working so late.

But it had taken four days after making his plan to convince Karen and Foggy that they could, at the very least, go home to sleep, and come back in the morning. He shouldn’t wait any longer - it may already have been too long.

And, he reminded himself, in a last ditch attempt to justify the guilt away, Claire had already been targeted once. If he didn’t ask for her help, if he didn’t regain his hearing, he wouldn’t be able to protect her if she was targeted again. He wouldn’t be able to protect Foggy or Karen if, somehow, his identity and their connection were discovered.

He slid the phone into his pocket and went back to work while he waited.

 

**********

 

It hadn’t taken him long to become accustomed to having a hand holding his or an arm around his shoulders, something to remind him he wasn’t alone and the world still existed. Even as he’d closed the door behind Foggy and Karen, he could feel the anxiety trying to worm it’s way back into his chest, and he had almost pulled them back, briefly considering telling them everything, if only so they wouldn’t have to leave.

But he couldn’t place that burden on them, and it was… it was too late to tell Foggy, he’d kept the secret for too long.

He dove into doing research for a new client, hoping that it would prove to be enough of a distraction, pausing only long enough to contemplate the burner phone when Claire had called. He had to get lost in the work, so he wouldn’t get lost in his own head again, so he wouldn’t _worry_ about getting lost in his own head, and make it that much more likely to happen.

He didn’t realize exactly how lost in the work he was until a hand landed on his shoulder, and he nearly jumped out of his skin, toppling over the chair he’d been sitting on. Everything was drowned out by a pounding heart and rushing blood until he backed into the kitchen island. He grabbed hold of it and tried to bring what little he could back into focus.

Hands fluttered around him, checking his face, neck, arms… Claire. Gentle, but quick and professional, running through a routine that had become too familiar.

He tried to find her shoulder, brushing her hands away as he did.

_It’s fine, I’m fine. That’s not… that’s not why I wanted you to come._

She backed out of reach, and he could only imagine that she was glaring at him with her hands on her hips, or rolling her eyes so hard her whole head moved with them.

She brushed the back of his hand, and he held it out, palm up. She handed him a notebook. His breath caught inexplicably at the thought of using it again, taking a step backwards from what he’d accomplished with Foggy and Karen.

_No, I- I can’t, just… sit down, please, I have something… m-my friends helped me set this up._

He reached forward cautiously, and found that Claire had righted the chair he’d knocked over. He sat and pulled the laptop towards him, hit a few keys, and passed it to Claire.

 _Just type, it’s, it’s faster and… a lot easier_.

There was a long pause, and he wished he could tell something _, anything_ , about why she was hesitating.

**So why am I here?**

_I need your help._

**Yeah, I got that part. We need a better system so you don’t scare the shit out of me when you don’t call back.**

_I’m sorry, I just… you’re the only one who knows, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…_

Claire took his hand and squeezed. He couldn’t tell much, and she let go quickly, but she didn’t seem angry at least.

**Just tell me what’s going on.**

_I think I know… how to fix this_ , he waved a hand vaguely at one ear. _Or I know where to start anyway._

**I thought you couldn’t remember anything?**

_I couldn’t before but I-I think I’ve figured it out now._

He explained haltingly. The longer he spoke the harder it was to keep his thoughts straight and force them out of his mouth correctly, not sure if the sounds were making sense, and just wishing he could hear his own words even if nothing else. It was frustrating not knowing how Claire was reacting to the story, not knowing if she was even listening at all. He couldn’t pay attention to movements in the air and vibrations in the floor while he was trying to concentrate on talking. For all he knew she could have walked away, leaving behind all the smells of the hospital that seemed to cling to everything after she left. He wanted to take her hand again, just to reassure himself that she was still there.

There was a long pause after he finished speaking. A longer one than there had been when he passed her the laptop. He concentrated and could feel the slightest bit of heat to his left, the smallest change in the air currents from the vents. She was still there. He was self-conscious suddenly, sitting poised over the braille display just waiting for a response. Even though Claire had seen him without glasses more often than with them, he was uncomfortably aware of the small movements his eyes made, and tried to remember whether or not it was better to keep them still. He decided to close them.

He was just about to say Claire’s name, reach out to make sure she was still there, when the braille display finally refreshed.

**Sounds crazy.**

He let out the breath he’d been holding slowly, not wanting Claire to know how anxiously he’d been waiting, and opened his eyes.

_You-you don’t have to help, it’s a long shot anyway…_

This time there was no pause.

**What’s your plan?**

 

***************

 

He could practically feel irritation radiating from Claire.

**Why not?**

_I just… I can’t…._

How to explain to her that he was terrified of even the smallest break in his connection with reality, and getting in a cab would do just that? He had tried to explain that it was more than just his hearing that had been messed up, but he couldn’t find the words to describe it, and he couldn’t hear the words he was saying, and he was just so _tired_.

**That’s not a reason.**

His hand automatically went to pick at the stitches in his leg, before remembering that Claire had removed them not ten minutes ago. He dug his thumb in, just until it started to hurt.

_It just… it makes me feel like I’m not here, like nothing is real._

**It’ll just be for a few minutes. I’ll be with you the whole time.**

_I can’t, Claire._

God he hated this, hated having to admit he was terrified, lower so many barriers, lay all his issues on someone else. Claire’s stubbornness made his own that much more apparent.

**Then take the cane at least.**

_And how am I supposed to…_ he fumbled for a word and silently cursed the English language. _See with that thing._

He gestured in the direction of the walking cane Claire had brought with her (after trying and failing to get him to use the awkward crutch that had been abandoned against the wall).

**That’s why I’m coming isn’t it?**

He didn’t want to say he didn’t trust her to lead him, didn’t want to insult her by implying that she wouldn’t be able to. He trusted her to try, certainly, but she, well… it had taken Foggy months to get good at it, and that was when Matt could navigate unassisted if he had to. Now, he wasn’t sure even Foggy would be able to get him to that alley without his cane.

_It’s just… it’s disconcerting, to have someone… pulling you around._

**You might not be able to see your leg, but I can. You’ve been pushing it too much. You’re not going to make it all that way, and I’m not going to carry you.**

_I’ll be fine Claire, I’ve fought through worse, you know that._

She paused.

**Fine.**

Vibrations carried through the floor as her chair scraped backwards. Her steps were more forceful than Karen’s, but not unintentionally heavy like Foggy’s - the walk of someone who had carefully orchestrated every movement and mannerism day in and day out in order to convince people that she was in charge and knew what she was doing.

He followed her steps until they were too distant to distinguish from every other vibration, and then again as she returned. She picked up his hand and wrapped his fingers around the familiar grip of his own cane.

 

**********

 

He was starting to think that, maybe, Claire had been right. It was a lot easier to ignore pain when you were fighting for your life, and when touch hadn’t taken over as your primary sense. He was almost willing to concede and let Claire wave down a cab, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He concentrated on keeping his grip on her elbow light, his steps even, and not tripping or falling over when she had to push him one way or the other.

_We’re almost there, wait a minute._

He stopped, counting off blocks in his head. He almost laughed when he realized that his mental map of the city was better than the one of his apartment.

 _Should be this one up here_.

He pointed, and Claire started moving again, Matt lagging a step behind.

He stood in the alley, trying to take in as much as he could. Rotten food and animal droppings and oil and, very faint, burnt plastic and singed cardboard. Nothing useful.

They moved down the alley slowly, Claire moving around him, searching for visual clues while he tried to pick up _something_ in the mess of smells. Wet newspaper, old blood, urine, dead mouse. It was giving him a headache.

_Anything?_

One tap on the shoulder for no. He knew it had been a long shot, knew he was hoping for too much after so long. What did he expect, that the kid would still be here?

They walked up and down the alley two more times. Claire was about to turn around and start a fourth pass, but Matt put a hand on her shoulder.

 _It’s no good, there’s nothing here_.

He leaned back against the wall and let himself slide down the rough brick, feeling himself slowly going numb as the realization hit. There was nothing there, no clue, nothing to go off of. He’d waited too long, and he couldn’t give a description other than a vague idea of height and age that wouldn’t narrow the search down by much. There was no way to find him.

He had nothing.

Claire had disappeared. She could have been standing two feet away, or halfway across the city, he couldn’t tell the difference. And, he realized, he didn’t really care. Didn’t care if she left. He was done.

He felt guilty, for one brief moment. He knew there were others, people who were deaf and blind and lived their lives anyway. But he couldn’t do it. He thought about dragging himself through day after day after day like this with no end in sight, and he couldn’t do it. It was one thing too many. He tried to grasp for the hope he’d been feeling just a few days earlier, the thought that this could mean a fresh start, a safe, comfortable life. But it slipped through his fingers, along with everything else. He was falling, and this time, he didn’t try to fight it.

But something grabbed his arm and pulled. It seemed to take forever for the sensation to register, an urgent, frantic tugging at his arm, trying to lift him from the ground he was slowly becoming aware of again. He felt himself stand, his legs were working of their own volition, his mind still miles below the ground. He was being pulled along, and he followed for a few stumbling steps, the cane dragging behind him, dangling loosely from his hand, until everything snapped back into place suddenly.

_Claire. Claire what’s going on?_

Her only response was to squeeze his hand and start moving faster. He swung the cane back out in front of him, concentrating only on not tripping over feet that still weren’t quite cooperating. He could feel the scar tissue in his leg pulling, and Claire was still moving faster.

_Claire stop, what’s happening?_

She broke into a run, and he was dragged along for two, three steps, until he couldn’t hold on anymore, and her hand slipped out of his. He froze.

_Claire. Claire!_

He tried to orient himself, but just those few steps taken without being aware of what direction he was moving in had him completely lost. He felt around slowly with the cane until he found a wall, and placed his hand against it, using it to keep himself walking straight as he continued in the direction Claire had been going.

Until he got to a corner, and he had no way of knowing whether she had turned or gone straight. The breeze, slight though it was, was blowing from behind him, erasing any trace of her that he might have caught.

_Claire? Claire!_

He stood with his hand on the corner of the building, trying not to panic. He thought they had been heading in the direction of the office, and they couldn’t have gone more than a block. If Claire didn’t come back in a few minutes, that’s where he would go.

He hoped his yelling hadn’t drawn too much attention.

He jumped when Claire took his hand again, and let out a sigh of relief.

_Don’t do that again please._

She tugged at his hand, and he followed. They ducked between two buildings and she handed him the note pad. He gritted his teeth and took it - it was the most practical way of communicating, under the circumstances.

**Sorry**

**Found him**

**By your office**

**Looking for you**

He ran shaking fingers over it twice more, to make sure he hadn’t misunderstood.

_Where is he?_

Claire passed him his mask - he hadn’t even noticed her take it out of his pocket - and flipped the page of the notebook.

**Doesn’t trust me**

**Needs to know it’s you**

He put the mask on, and she turned him and pushed down gently on his shoulder. He dropped to a crouch, leaning against the wall to take some weight off his leg.

Nothing happened for a long time. Claire was crouched beside him and seemed to be gesturing and talking. She stood suddenly, and he managed to catch her hand.

_No, Claire. Don’t make him do anything if he’s scared._

They waited longer. Matt’s leg started to shake and he sat down and winced as he stretched it out.

Then the breeze being funnelled between the buildings changed, just slightly. Someone was standing in front of him. A small hand tugged at the edge of his mask.

 _Yeah, it’s me. Think you can do something about this?_ He tapped his ear. _I’d like to be able to hear again._

Claire passed him the notebook.

**Doesn’t want to make it worse.**

_If I just wait, will it come back? Do you know?_

**6 months? A year?**

**Maybe never**

**Never lost control before**

He clenched his teeth. Six months, if he knew for sure that it would be six months… he might be able to bear it for that long. It would test everything he had, but if he knew there was going to be an end to it, he might just be able to push through.

But the uncertainty would kill him.

_Will you try, please? I won’t be mad if you make a mistake._

The boy disappeared, and it took everything Matt had not to go after him. He felt the muscles in Claire’s hand twitch, and he smiled.

_She won’t be mad either. Don’t worry, I’m a bit scared of her too._

She slapped his shoulder lightly, and he laughed.

 _She’s actually very nice though_. _She helps me a lot, even though she doesn’t have to._

The boy was back in front of him a moment later. Tentative fingers trailed over his head from front to back, and then pulled his mask off slowly and burrowed under his hair. He barely felt anything this time, not much more than a few small vibrations, and he doubted anyone else would have felt anything at all.

He squeezed Claire’s hand, suddenly fearful that things would get worse. The boy couldn’t have been more than ten, maybe twelve. How much control did he really have? He pushed it back down and tried to stay as still as he could. Any fear he showed might be a distraction.

It only seemed to be a minute or two before the hands moved away. Matt turned his head back and forth, trying to catch any sound at all.

_Nothing… nothing’s changed._

The notebook was back in his hand again. It was taking longer and longer to read the words even though it Claire was trying to use as few as possible.

**Wait**

**Might take a few tries**

**Can’t do too much at once**

He nodded, wishing he didn’t have to try and fill in the blanks. He would ask her to type everything out for him when they got back.

_Claire, you’ll um… figure out what to do, if we need to try again?_

She tapped his shoulder twice, and he leaned his head back against the wall, wanting nothing more than to sleep.

He almost was asleep by the time Claire grabbed his arm and dragged him up. His leg protested, and he gave up all efforts to hide the limp and leaned against her. She passed the notebook to him again and he fumbled to read it with one hand holding the cane and the other hanging on to her shoulder in an attempt to keep him upright.

**Cab?**

_Yes._

 

***********

 

The ride wasn’t quite so hellish as he had imagined, but he chalked it up to being too tired to notice much other than the window rattling against his head, which he couldn’t be bothered to lift until the rattling stopped.

He gave up on attempting to climb the stairs and avoid the elevator after the first flight.

Claire ignored him when he tried to take her to the table where the laptop still sat and have her explain everything that just happened, instead steering him much more easily than he would have liked towards the bed.

She pushed one more note into his hands.

**Call once if emergency**

**Twice if not**

**Don’t scare me again**

_Yes ma’am._

He thought she might have waited until he fell asleep before leaving, but it was too difficult to tell.

When he woke, there was a faint buzzing in his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to the wonderful Missleemoore for beta'ing!


	19. Chapter 19

There was something in Matt’s voice that worried Claire. An almost manic edge that was slowly getting harsher, building up to a fall.

She had to find something before it got to that point, anything at all. By their third time down the alley she was tearing through every scrap she could find. There had to be _something_ , a wallet, a school ID card, a piece of homework with a name, anything at all they could use. Matt wasn’t even paying attention anymore, half-heartedly poking at the ground in from of him with his cane, shoulders curled in and head lowered like child that had been hit one time too many.

“Shit!” she practically threw the box she’d been rummaging through to the ground. She wanted nothing more than to peel off the rubber gloves that were covered in god only knew what, but she would keep going. This time, this time there would be something, there had to be.

But Matt put a hand on her shoulder before she could finish turning.

“It’s no good,” his voice was hoarse and cracked, barely even recognizable. “There’s nothing here.”

It was like watching a car hit a building in slow motion. He crumpled in on himself, until he was smaller than she could have thought possible. She crouched against the wall opposite and peeled off the rubber gloves. If he would just _do_ something. She knew how to deal with screaming and crying and flailing fists. But he was totally still, totally silent. She could barely even see him breathing. She moved towards him and shook his knee gently.

“Matt, come on.” No reaction. She pulled off his glasses. His eyes were half-open, staring at nothing as usual. But somehow they seemed even more vacant and unfocused. “Goddammit Matt, this is not the end of the world, don’t do this.” He didn’t even seem to know she was there, didn’t react at all, and he reacted to _everything_. She wanted to shake him, smack him, do something to snap him out of it, but somehow that felt like trying to get someone’s attention by setting off a bomb. “Murdock you cut this out right now, I know you’ve had more than your fair share of shit, but you lived with that and you can live with this.” She shook her head. Trying to pep-talk a man who had no idea she was even speaking. She pinched the skin on the back of his hand, hard. It should have been more than enough. “Please, Matt. I don’t know what to do now.”

Nothing. She stood and faced the street, hands on her hips, and raised her eyes to the sky, trying to ignore the hole burning through her stomach. If he didn’t come out of it… god, it was the last thing she wanted to do, but she’d have to call an ambulance. She couldn’t carry him, she’d never be able to get him into a cab without raising suspicion. She didn’t know how to contact his friends, or what she would tell them even if she could. And maybe it was irrational, but she could practically _feel_ Fisk’s people lurking in every shadow and around every corner, and she didn’t want to stay there, both of them exposed, for a moment longer than they had to.

She paced in front of the alley, running over her options again, glad that there didn’t seem to be anyone around other than one lone figure a couple blocks away.

She looked up suddenly. One lone figure, small, standing by Matt’s office building, watching her. Watching _them_. She turned away quickly, and continued her pacing, not wanting to spook him. The chances were next to nothing, it was too much of a coincidence, but…

But he’d been there all night, she suddenly realized, on her periphery every time they came back to the street, but never quite registering. And she’d seen him there before, when she was going home late at night. Or, she thought she might have. She’d never thought to pay attention.

Heart pounding out of her chest, she kept pacing, sneaking glances when she could, terrified every time she looked away that when she looked back, the kid wouldn’t be there anymore.

She took a deep breath and crouched in front of Matt, pulling his mask out of his pocket, just in case.

“Listen Matt, I know you can’t hear me, but you have to get up, right now.” She grabbed his arm and stood, putting all her weight into pulling him up. She glanced over her shoulder. The kid was still there, and maybe she was just projecting her own fear, but something about his body language had changed. He knew he’d been spotted.

“Matt come _on_.” She didn’t want to leave him there. It was only two blocks, but it was _two whole blocks_ , and a lot could happen in the time it would take her to get to the kid and convince him to come back with her. With every muscle in her body screaming, Matt finally seemed to wake up, and he lifted off the ground like someone had attached a string to his head and pulled him up. She used the momentum to keep him going without any pause, Matt dragging after her like a poorly controlled marionette, his cane scraping along the ground.

The boy was staring at them like a deer caught in headlights, and she picked up the pace as much as she could. No point in being subtle now, all she could hope for was to reach him before he bolted.

Matt’s grip tightened on her hand suddenly, his steps surer but still uneven, and she nearly tripped over the cane as he swung it back out in front of him. She wanted to take a moment to bask in relief, but it was a moment they couldn’t afford to lose, and she started moving faster.

“Claire what’s going on?”

“Not sure I know myself.”

And there it was. The boy took a step. Claire broke into a run, and felt Matt’s hand start to slip. _It’s not that far, it’s not that far, it’s not that far…_

“I’m sorry Matt, I am.” And she let go.

“Claire? Claire!”

He sounded so uncharacteristically scared it was like a punch to the gut, but she had to catch up with that kid, had to find out if it was him.

He was out of her sight now and she ran faster, not even checking for traffic as she tore across a street and down the next block. She skidded around the corner and cut diagonally across the street the kid had gone down. He was running now too, and she cursed under her breath.

“Please!” it was the only word she could get out, and she must have sounded desperate, because he looked back and hesitated just a moment - long enough for her to catch up and grab his arm.

“Stop, please,” she tried to explain between breaths, but it was all she could do to hold onto him as he tried to squirm out of her grip.

“ _Let go!”_

Alarm bells were ringing in her head, warning her how this would look to anyone passing by or glancing out a window.

“Please, I need your help.” She loosened her grip slightly, and he tore away and stumbled back a few steps. “Please, do you recognize this?” she held out the mask. It wasn’t exactly easy to recognize, but it was enough to make him pause mid-way through turning to run again. “You were here a few weeks ago, right? You saw the guy who wears this?”

The boy nodded slowly, still eyeing her suspiciously.

“You were the one who made the lightning?”

His eyes widened and he stepped back.

“No, no, it’s okay, you’re not in trouble, he just really needs your help.” She held her hands out and crouched a little, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.

“Anyone could make a mask like that.”

Claire nodded.

“Maybe. But how many people know where he was? Or that he went into this building when he got hurt? That’s why you’re here, right?”

He nodded. “I followed him. The ambulance came, but he never came back. I thought maybe I k-killed him.”

“How often do you come out here?”

“Whenever Mom’s working the night shift.”

The boy had stopped backing away, but still looked like he was ready to run at any moment.

“Listen, I know you have no reason to trust me, but whatever happened that night, he can’t- he can’t hear anything anymore, and he thinks maybe you can help.”

An odd expression crossed the boy’s face, but she couldn’t tell what it might mean.

“I’m going to go back to him now, he can’t see either - that’s not your fault,” she added quickly as horror flashed across his face. “That happened along time ago. But he’s probably really scared right now. I’d really like it if you followed me.”

She turned carefully and walked away, not daring to turn back in case she spooked him, but listening intently for footsteps following hers. They were there, but only just. She pulled out the notebook and contemplated it, trying to figure out the best way to explain things without using too many words.

She’d been right about Matt being scared. Even half a block away she could see he was on the verge of hyperventilating, and his head was whipping back and forth like he was still searching for some kind of sound. He was clutching at the corner of a building with one hand like it was the only thing keeping him from drifting away while he tentatively reached out with his cane.

She put her hand over his, and grimaced at how violently he jumped - again. This was getting ridiculous, he was a bundle of nerves and adrenaline and restlessness, and he was going to burn himself out if he didn’t learn to calm down.

“Don’t do that again please.”

“I’m sorry, I won’t.”

She turned to look at the boy, who was standing a few steps behind her.

“It’s not safe for him to put the mask on out in the open like this.”

The boy nodded and walked past her, ducking between two buildings. She followed, pulling Matt behind her and handing him the notebook.

His hands shook as he ran his fingers over the page again and again, trying to parse the words together.

“Where is he?” Matt’s head jerked to the side, like he was trying to look around for him.

Claire placed the mask in his hand. He fingered it for a moment, looking confused, and she flipped the notebook to the next page for him to read. He pulled the mask on and she turned to the boy.

“Well?”

He still looked like a rabbit about to bolt, and Claire pushed Matt into a crouch, then dropped into one herself, trying to make both of them look less intimidating.

“Well? Do you recognize him with the mask?”

“I don’t– I don’t know.” The boy was edging slowly back towards the street.

“Hey, you were waiting here for him, right? Who else would show up here? Who else would know?”

“The bad guys could’ve been watching.”

“We’re not the bad guys, I promise, we just want your help.”

“I don’t– I don’t think I can.” He looked close to tears.

“Hey, it’s okay, we’re not going to- shit!” He bolted, and Claire sprang to her feet, reaching out for him. If he ran away, they’d never find him again. But Matt caught her hand with startling accuracy.

“No, Claire. Don’t make him do anything if he’s scared.”

The boy froze and turned back slowly, looking at Matt with wide eyes.

“You recognize his voice?” Claire dropped back into a crouch.

He nodded, and stepped closer. It was a wonder he did, with Matt’s voice as strained as it was, but he still had that odd, unmistakable cadence, and tendency to almost swallow his words. It must have been enough.

She glanced at Matt as the boy stepped closer again, studying him intently. He was shaking with the effort of remaining in the crouch, and suddenly sat heavily, stretching his leg out straight with a grimace.

That seemed to do it. He stood directly in front of Matt, looking down at his leg.

“That was my fault, I saw it.”

“He doesn’t blame you.”

“I lost control.”

He reached out tentatively, and Matt spoke as soon as the boy’s hand touched the mask.

“Yeah, it’s me. Think you can do something about this?” He tapped his ear. “I’d like to be able to hear again.”

The boy drew his hand back sharply, shaking his head.

“I might make it worse.”

Claire talked as she wrote down his response and passed it to Matt.

“You know how this happened though?”

He nodded.

“If I try really hard, I can see thoughts. And I can change them.”

Claire raised her eyebrows. It was a scary thought, that much power in the hands of a kid.

“You mean, you can read minds?”

“No, I just… see them, jumping back and forth, like lights. My- My mom’s change sometimes, she gets sad, and I change them back.”

Claire tried to keep her voice light.

“Does she know you do that?”

He shook his head, looking down at his feet. “Don’t wanna scare her.”

“And what about that night a couple weeks ago? What ha–“

Matt, finally done reading her message, interrupted.

“If I just wait, will it come back? Do you know?”

He shook his head, looking at Claire with wide eyes.

“How often do you… help your mother?”

“A c-couple times a year. But I don’t know, it was stronger, I’ve never done it by accident, maybe it’ll nev-never go back.”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” He was breathing hard, speaking through choked-back sobs. Claire put her hand out, stopping just short of touching him when he took a half-step back. She took the notebook from Matt, scribbled down the answer and passed it back.

“So the lightning, that was you too then?”

He nodded.

“Has that ever happened before?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t even know I could do that.”

“And why were you there that night?”

“M-mom was home, I didn’t want to hurt her.”

“It’s just you and your mom?”

He nodded.

Matt spoke up again.

“Will you try, please? I won’t be mad if you make a mistake.”

The boy backed away a few steps, terrified eyes locked on Claire.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what his thoughts looked like before, I don’t know how to fix them.”

“Hey, it’s okay, if it doesn’t work, you can try again, right?”

The boy kept backing away, and Claire had to resist the urge to grab him and drag him back.

“She won’t be mad either.” Matt said, a lopsided grin plastered across his face. “Don’t worry, I’m a bit scared of her too.”

“Hey!” she slapped his shoulder lightly. “I’m not scary!”

Matt laughed. “She’s actually very nice though. She helps me a lot, even though she doesn’t have to.”

Claire could feel her face getting hot, and muttered under her breath. “Yeah, and you’d be dead if I didn’t, I wouldn’t say it’s much of a choice.”

There was a long, tense pause. Claire was afraid to so much as twitch a finger until the boy spoke again.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” He looked at Claire.

“Hey, we know you don’t know what you’re doing any more than we do. It’s not your fault if anything goes wrong. But if you don’t at least try… well, hey, how many kids can say that a super hero asked them for help?”

He nodded, looking resolute, and stepped in front of Matt. It was a strange sight, seeing a boy placing his hands on a grown man’s head as though he were blessing him.

Matt squeezed her hand, and she wondered how much he could feel.

It was over quickly. The boy looked at her.

“I don’t want to do any more, big changes aren’t good.”

Claire nodded. “Makes sense. You want to just make a little change, and see if it works, like a science experiment, right?”

He nodded.

Matt was moving his head, trying to catch a sound.

“Nothing… nothing’s changed.”

She looked back at the boy.

“It doesn’t always work right away. Sometimes I have to try a few times before anything happens.”

She scribbled down the answer once again and passed the notebook to Matt.

“That was very brave, I’m sure your mom would be really proud of you for trying to help.” He ducked his head, looking like he was trying to hide a smile. “But you know you can’t tell anyone, right?”

“Right.”

“So, I guess now we have-”

Matt interrupted again. She was going to have to come up with some sort of signal to stop him doing that.

“Claire, you’ll um.. Figure out what to do, if we need to try again?”

“I was just about to get to that.” She smiled indulgently and tapped his shoulder twice. “So kid, what do we call you?”

“Max.”

“Nice to meet you Max. My name is Claire.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Missleemoore for the beta!


	20. Chapter 20

Matt breathed in the city, feeling the air get cool and damp as the sun went down. There was one particular spot he had found, years ago, from which he could hear nearly all of Hell’s Kitchen if he concentrated hard enough. So that’s where he stood.

All he could hear was the buzzing, very faint. It was high-pitched and grating, and sounded like the ancient fluorescent light in the building’s basement, but it was hope. He thought that maybe, _maybe_ , it got a bit louder when he spoke, but he could have been imagining it.

He felt the air change just before Foggy put a hand on his shoulder. They stood for a moment before Foggy pulled one of Matt’s hands away from his cane, and traced a question mark on his palm.

_I’m uh… it’s always louder out here, thought I’d see if I could… try to hear something._

Foggy squeezed his shoulder and shook him gently.

 _No, nothing. Not, not yet. But I’ve got a good feeling_.

He didn’t want to tell Foggy about the buzzing, not until he was certain it actually meant something and wasn’t just him loosing the last bit of sanity he had.

Foggy threw his arm over Matt’s shoulders, and Matt could feel Foggy’s chest vibrating against his shoulder as he talked excitedly about something. When Foggy stopped, Matt put his own arm around Foggy’s shoulders.

It felt almost peaceful.

 

**********

 

Claire had left a few braille pages on his bedside table, explaining everything that had happened the previous night. He had woken up with a splitting headache, and it took a few tries to really understand what had happened. Somehow, despite the headache and the noise, he felt… better. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what had changed, but suddenly he felt more stable, more hopeful, more capable.

Claire had said the boy “fixed” his mother’s thoughts when she got sad. She assumed he meant depression, and it made Matt wonder if maybe it was just automatic for him to fix, well…

He didn’t let himself think it. Because that would make it real, and besides, god only knew what had been messed up, so it couldn’t have been _that_ clouding his thoughts and making him doubt everything. No, Max had just managed to put something back that he’d moved in the first place, and - they all hoped - that meant it would hold.

Claire had insisted that Max not sneak out anymore, not completely out of his building anyway - she didn’t want him getting in trouble for trying to help. He lived not far from where Matt had found him, so they agreed they would meet on the roof of Max’s apartment building. Claire arranged everything, taking yet more of her nearly non-existent free time to make sure Matt was able to get to Max’s apartment and back without getting hit by a car.

He brought the laptop and braille reader with him this time, so he would be able to talk to Max and Claire without having to interpret notes from that godawful notebook. The moment he had his hearing back he was putting the whole thing through the shredder.

He had Claire position him so he was directly below the fire escape, and jumped up to grab the ladder and pull it down. It was a difficult jump, and a difficult climb. The pain was negligible now - a clearer head meant he was better able to manage it, and actually following Claire’s advice and resting (since he didn’t have much else to do) probably hadn’t hurt either - but the muscle he had lost in just a few weeks of inactivity surprised him.

He stood at the edge of the roof nervously, and could feel that Claire had crouched slightly, presumably to talk to Max, who must have been just far enough away that Matt had no way of sensing him. He wondered if he should crouch too, but then Claire was taking his arm and sitting him down where he could lean his back against the low wall surrounding the roof. She handed him the braille reader, and Matt waited while she set up the laptop and showed Max what to do.

Matt was once again sitting with his hands hovering awkwardly over the braille reader, uncomfortably aware of his breathing and his heartbeat and the cement he was sitting on and the brick he was leaning against, waiting for _something_ to happen. At least this time he was wearing his sunglasses and didn’t have to worry about his eyes making the kid uncomfortable.

The reader refreshed after an almost unbearably long wait.

**Hi**

_Hi._

Matt suddenly realized he had no idea how to have a conversation with a ten-year-old.

Another unbearably long pause, and the cord connecting the reader to the laptop jerked.

**Maybe start by telling Max what changed after he did his thing –Claire**

Matt described the buzzing, and the way his thoughts had become clearer. He could feel his face getting hot - he was divulging more about the way his head worked than he ever would have wanted to. But he couldn’t risk what might happen if he didn’t give Max all the information he might need.

Once again the hands were on his head, and once again he could feel the vibration of electricity against his skull. He thought he could hear the buzzing getting louder, but he couldn’t tell if it was real or imagined, and then Max pulled away. He almost reached out to stop him, tell him to keep going, because it was _working_ , things were clicking back into place. But Claire put her hand on his wrist, like she knew what he was going to do.

**It’s a school night. Max should probably be going to bed –Claire**

For just a second, he thought, he _thought_ , he heard a voice protesting above the buzzing that - he was sure now - was getting louder.

 _She’s right_. He tried to keep his voice from shaking. _School’s important._

Claire touched his elbow, and he took that as his cue to stand.

_Thank you Max, you’re a brave kid._

A moment later, Claire was leading him back down the fire escape.

 

**********

 

There was no doubt about it, the buzzing was definitely louder. And not so much a buzz as a waterfall crashing all around him, making him think he was hearing things that weren’t really there. Like the creak of the floorboard in the middle of his apartment, right before he walked into a wall. At least no one was around to see him walking into walls, even though he could have sworn someone had said his name a minute earlier.

He kept his hand on the wall and walked the perimeter of his apartment until he made it to the kitchen. He had some time before Karen or Foggy would drop by to check on him, and hopefully by then he’d have the white-noise-induced auditory hallucinations under control. He was still hesitant to tell them about the new development and get their hopes up.

He shovelled down a bowl of chicken and rice. The almost overwhelmingly loud rushing in his ears seemed to deaden his other senses somewhat, and as difficult as it made navigating the apartment, it was also a welcome relief to not have to concentrate on keeping everything under control. If he could just figure out how to turn down the volume a little bit, he might actually be able to get back to his normal balance.

He went back up to the roof to see if any sounds could break through.

 

**********

 

For every two steps forward it seemed like they took a step back. Max was making it up as he went along, and Matt was slowly coming to terms with the fact that a ten-year-old ( _twelve_ , actually, he had been corrected quite emphatically) was solely responsible for whether or not his brain was ever going to work properly again. Gradually, the ambient background noise diminished, to be replaced by something that sounded very much like he had stuck his head underwater and put his fingers in his ears. A rushing noise that could have been a distortion of the constant background noise of the city.

And then one evening, out of nowhere, he heard a muffled thumping, in time with his own heartbeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Missleemoore for beta'ing once again despite being busy as shit!


	21. Chapter 21

“Foggy, what is that?”

“It’s a get-well present for Matt,” Foggy replied defensively.

“It’s neon pink.”

“Hey, he doesn’t care what colour it is.”

“Does it say–”

“Yes, it does.”

“Why?”

“It’s a joke.”

“A joke.”

“Yeah.” Foggy was suddenly self-conscious. “Y’know, like, I’m a terrible person who just grabbed the first thing off the shelf because his friend can’t see it anyway?”

“You know he’ll be able to figure out what it says, right? The lettering’s raised.”

“Well yeah, it wouldn’t be funny if he couldn’t read it. Then it would just be mean.”

“I don’t see how it’s funny at all.”

“It’s just, I mean– he said once that he hates it when people walk on eggshells around him, and a tradition was born.”

“A tradition of getting him insensitive gifts?”

“Well, I mean, not all the time, just when I really…” Foggy stammered. “He’ll think it’s funny, okay?”

“If you say so.”

He walked into Matt’s office, and Karen followed, hanging back by the door.

“Matt!” he yelled, but there was no response. “Hey Matt!” He practically screamed it, and Matt turned his head.

It had happened a few days earlier - the same day, in fact, that Matt had insisted he was so tired of being stuck in his apartment that if one of them didn’t pick him up, he was going to attempt the walk to the office on his own.

Foggy had _shrieked_ upon discovering an insect the size of his fist when he picked up his coat from where it had fallen on the floor, and while Karen was nearly falling out of her chair laughing, Matt had come crashing out of his office, looking ready for a fight (although exactly what he had intended on doing if there really had been one, neither of them knew).

Foggy had practically tackled him to the ground, and Karen collapsed on top of them, still laughing, because _of course_ Foggy screaming like he was being attacked by an axe-murderer, rather than a particularly large moth, would be what finally kick-started Matt’s hearing.

He couldn’t hear anything below a full-blown yell (Foggy and Karen had turned it into a game - who could get Matt’s attention with the least amount of noise), and even then, he couldn’t make out words, but it was a start.

“I got you a present.” Foggy bumped it against Matt’s arm, and Matt pushed his chair back from the desk to turn and grab it.

“Is this a… teddy bear?” It was nearly as big as his torso.

“Yup.” Foggy grinned and tapped Matt’s shoulder twice.

Matt furrowed his brows as he ran his fingers over the embroidered letters on the bear’s sweater. Once he got to the fourth letter, he broke into a grin and shook his head.

“Does this say ‘Congratulations’?”

“Maybe.” Two taps on the shoulder.

Matt laughed and balanced the bear carefully in his lap.

“Pink?” He held up one hand. “Or blue?” he held up the other.

Foggy touched the ‘pink’ hand.

“Of course it is.” Matt shook his head, and reached out for Foggy, pulling him into an awkward one-armed hug. “You’re a terrible friend.”

“Aren’t I?” Foggy laughed and ruffled Matt’s hair. He looked up to see Karen beaming at them from the door.

“So what were you apologizing for?” She asked as they left Matt’s office.

“What?”

“C’mon Foggy, that was not a ‘get-well’ present, that was a ‘sorry I fucked up’ present.”

Foggy hesitated.

“I just… I just should’ve paid more attention, that’s all.” He hoped she would leave it at that, but her raised eyebrows said otherwise. “He had some, uh… problems, in college, and I should’ve known that something like this would trigger them again, but it’s been so long... It’s- it’s really not my place to tell you, y’know?”

“Oh.”

“I mean, he never will, but I think you should, maybe I’ll ask if I can-“

“It’s okay, Foggy, you can stop talking.” She touched his arm, laughing.

“Oh god, thank you.”

Foggy was a bit surprised (and Karen absolutely _delighted_ ) when he checked on Matt later to find he still had the bear sitting on his lap as he worked.

He was less surprised to discover it being used as a pillow when Matt, inevitably, fell asleep halfway through the afternoon.


	22. Chapter 22

It was, admittedly, not the smartest decision he’d ever made. Maybe, possibly, there was a chance he should’ve waited a bit longer before he started roof-hopping again. Although this possibility didn’t occur to him until he discovered that he’d drifted ever so slightly to the right, and the roof he’d expected to be there was just a few inches farther away than he thought.

He _had_ made it nearly a full block though, almost completely on memory. And that was something to be proud of, though his scraped ribs were trying to send him a different message. His muscles decided to send the same message the moment he had managed to pull himself up onto the roof, and he walked sheepishly down the fire escape, stuffing his mask in a pocket and hoping that none of his neighbours would be out for a late-night stroll around the block.

He could just pick up the sounds of traffic when he was at street level. Enough that he could keep himself going straight along the sidewalk, and not head directly into traffic. It was pedestrians he worried about now, especially without his cane, and he kept as close to the buildings as he could before climbing up the fire escape of his own building, to avoid passing anyone in the hallway.

He wondered if his neighbours had even noticed anything had changed.

**********

The steps backwards were terrifying, even though they were to be expected. He couldn’t help the creeping feeling of anxiety when another rooftop meeting with Max left things worse rather than better. And even worse was when something completely unexpected happened - most recently, his sense of taste was dampened to almost nothing, and it took Max several tries to figure out what he’d done wrong. At least that was an easy one to hide. The time when his arm started shaking uncontrollably, that one was a bit harder.

Every now and then, sounds would come through in flashes and knock him off balance. A car horn, voices clear as a bell. It was disorienting, sometimes painful, but it was progress, and he would inevitably find himself smiling each time.

Once, just for a second, he could hear Karen typing in the next room, as loudly as if she was sitting right next to him.

He did his best not to show his impatience around Max or Claire, but he was so close, _so close_. He just wanted it over and done. He had taken up pacing his apartment again - without running into things now, he noticed suddenly after a day or two. At least one good thing had come of all this: he didn’t need to even think about where anything was in the apartment anymore, he just knew.

He was surrounded by static, and low rumblings, and high-pitched whines, all shuffling around and jostling each other, trying to become something recognizable. Foggy and Karen had started yelling as loud as they could to get his attention, and he could just make out their voices over the background noise - enough to know who was doing the yelling, but not enough to know what they were actually saying.

He imagined it must have been something similar to a near-sighted person putting glasses on for the first time when the floating, unfocused mass of sounds finally dropped into place. Max was mumbling to himself, sounding like he was standing three blocks away. It happened so without warning that Matt was almost too stunned to say anything.

“Stop, stop!” Max pulled away quickly, and Matt had to clap a hand over his mouth to cover his joy. God, he never thought he would be happy to hear the sound of his own voice, of all things.

“What? What’s wrong?” He felt, he _heard_ , Max scrambling for the laptop and braille reader.

“No, no, it’s okay.” Matt reached out for Max’s arm. He completely missed, but he didn’t care. “You did it Max.”

***********

He revelled in the sounds of the city as he walked to the office. It wasn’t perfect, not yet. Well, he reconsidered, not perfect for _him_. His hearing was still probably better than that of most people, even though it wasn’t nearly as good as it had been before. He wasn’t sure if it would ever go back to the way it had been, but he wasn’t sure that he cared either. He wouldn’t mind things being a bit quieter.

But for now, there was one important thing he had to do. In person. He grinned as he climbed the stairs of the office building and put his hand on the door of Nelson & Murdock. Because inside was the one sound he had missed more than anything else.

Foggy and Karen laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there it is. The final chapter.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who's read this, who has left kudos, and especially those who left comments. This is the first fic I've written in several years (and only the second multi-chapter story I've ever finished - including original work), and it's gained more attention than almost all my other fics combined. The Daredevil fandom on ao3 and Tumblr has been so kind and supportive, and I love all of you guys.
> 
> And a huge thank you to Missleemoore for being my beta/personal cheerleader - honestly, there were so many times I thought this fic just wasn't very good, I'm pretty sure without your cheerleading I would've chickened out and abandoned it halfway through.
> 
> Thank you all again
> 
> \- Ink


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